One Foot in the Grave (Window to Heaven)
by Flare Warrior
Summary: Eggsy is caught in an explosion, and when he gets home Harry, who died five years ago in Kentucky, is waiting for him. (Now with added page breaks)
1. Chapter 1

Eggsy shut the front door to his house with a hard sigh. It was dark inside as always, which at least eased the ache in his head. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the door - only to wince when the dried mud on his back crunched against the wood.

He should probably have gone to headquarters. Waking up in the ass end of Scotland with no recollection of getting there was something that screamed 'go to the Merlin department,' but he was gross from the mud, and from eight hours on public transport, and whatever the fuck had happened could damn well wait until after he showered and slept.

He dragged himself off the door and made it as far as the couch. They'd finally fixed the light in the square, it seemed, though it had been blocked from his sight in the hall. He believed this for a whole minute, which was embarrassing given his profession, before the clink of dishes forced him to reevaluate his assessment.

A quick glance over the back of the couch confirmed - the kitchen light was on. The kitchen light was on because someone was in his kitchen. Now that his training was kicking in he had no idea how he'd missed the smell of food wafting around and the general disturbance of his house. There was stuff that wasn't his on the coffee table, a second umbrella on the rack - the butterflies were back up, for Christ's sake.

A head injury was looking more and more likely by the minute.

This was either a _very_ eccentric baddie who felt like making his debut with an absurdly personal flare, or a burglar who was more into making a mess than stealing. With caution, he heaved himself up and walked to the doorway.

Eggsy stopped on the threshold to the kitchen.

 _Oh god_ , he thought, _I've died_ , then _I guess that makes more sense_.

Harry Hart was in his kitchen cooking dinner.

He couldn't see Harry's face from the angle he was at, but it was still obviously him. Harry was by the stove with a frypan over the burner in one hand and a spatula in the other, like he'd been expecting Eggsy home at about this time and had thought to start cooking for the both of them. He was in a white button down and pressed black pants that were somewhat wrinkled from the day, and a green apron that wasn't doing much to keep the flour off the black fabric. His hair was free of product, allowed to curl about freely. It was as domestic as it was impossible, and Eggsy stood in the door and wondered how, exactly, he'd passed on, and who he ought to thank for it.

"You're just in time. Dinner's ready." Harry said at last, startling him out of his trance. He reached up and shut the burner off with the sharp click Eggsy knew well from cooking meals himself here, and suddenly Harry was crossing the kitchen, smiling, looking the same as he had in the last days of his life - with the exception of a silvering scar that arced back from his eyebrow. Words got stuck in Eggsy's throat at the sight of him, thought ground to a halt, so he had somewhat of an excuse that when Harry leaned in, fingers brushing the edge of his jaw, and pressed a kiss to his lips, he only kept staring, still, as if afraid he'd burst if he so much as breathed.

It was chaste and short, the sort couples who've been together for years shared, but it still sent a shock though Eggsy's overworked nerves, made his shattered heart flare to life, and stung like the first drop of salve on a wound.

"Welcome home, Eggsy."

Eggsy was glad he couldn't speak, or he might have sobbed.

Then Harry was off again, plating the food and setting two places at the table as if he did it every night, as if he hadn't died and nothing was weird about this at all. As he moved to his seat he looked at Eggsy again, raising his eyebrows "Are you planning to stand in the door all night?"

Eggsy started and moved across the uncharacteristically bright kitchen to sit at Harry's right in the longest knee-jerk reaction he'd ever managed. Harry smiled again, and Eggsy watched him start to cut his food.

 _What is this_ , Eggsy wanted to ask, but it tangled in _how are you here_ and _I missed you_ and _why did you kiss me_ , and so on, and somehow they together came out as: "Harry it's eleven o'clock at night. Why the hell are you eating pancakes?"

Harry stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth and looked at him, but it had been too long for Eggsy to decipher what was behind his eyes. Finally, he smiled warmly, the way he always had.

"I wanted blueberries and dinner." He replied, and set about eating with an air of prim satisfaction.

"It's breakfast, though, innit?" Eggsy asked, feeling somehow more dazed, but started eating anyway. It was a terrifically made breakfast.

As Eggsy ate his mind settled a bit, and he figured he may as well roll with being dead if Harry was doing it anyway. Then something nudged his foot, and he glanced down to find -

"J.B.?" he asked shakily. J.B. yipped at him and wagged his tail hopefully.

"Finally woke up, I suppose. What kind of dog won't greet his master at the door?" Harry said.

Like playing a country song in reverse, Eggsy thought, and laughed a bit, handing J.B. a chunk of pancake.

"He'll get fat if you keep spoiling him." Harry scolded, and Eggsy smiled at him.

"It ain't gentlemanly to comment on someone's weight, Harry."

It wasn't even a conscious decision he made to follow Harry into the master bedroom after dinner, more a product of how he couldn't imagine letting Harry leave his line of sight. Harry didn't seem to mind one bit anyway. He turned once they were in the room and reached behind Eggsy to shut the door, then backed him into it and kissed him again. It was just as shocking as the first time, a jolt of lightning along his shot nerves that lit him up too bright and not bright enough all at once.

It wasn't short this time. This time, Eggsy had to grab Harry's hips to hold on while Harry kissed him like he was never going to kiss anyone else ever again, a slow and sweet undoing. Eggsy kissed back with just the same level of reverence, and could hardly believe he'd done enough good to have this kind of heaven waiting for him.

Eventually he drew back, leaving Eggsy glad for the door's support, and brushed a hand along Eggsy's suit.

"What a mess you are." Harry said quietly "What have you gotten up to?"

 _Hell if I know_ , Eggsy thought.

"Sorry," Eggsy replied.

Harry shushed him and gave him a light nudge towards the bathroom "Go and get cleaned up. I'll bring you something to sleep in."

He moved away and Eggsy told himself he didn't instantly feel bereft. But he was right, Eggsy's suit was an unsalvageable, crunchy mess of mud and sweat and possibly gum from the train, and his hair was only marginally better. So he went. He left the ruined suit in a pile on the bathroom floor and lost track of time standing under the water, felt it take some of his shock with it and leave him shaken and ready to break.

"Eggsy?" Harry called after an undetermined amount of time. Eggsy snapped back to himself and shut off the water.

"Comin'," he called back, drying and wrapping himself in Harry's red robe on impulse. He almost stumbled when the smell of Harry's soap rose off it the way it hadn't in years and had to brace himself on the sink to blink back the tears that were suddenly in his eyes.

Outside that door, waiting for him to come out, was Harry Hart. The man he'd loved so completely and so stupidly, the man who'd been dead and buried five years ago, as real as anything had ever seemed. It was like the thought had been too big to settle in his head and just now had fitted into place. He bit down on his knuckle to ground himself. He wasn't going to lose it here. He _wasn't_.

"Are you alright, darling?" Harry called again.

 _Darling_. It was a good thing he was dead, otherwise he probably wouldn't have survived this. Eggsy let out a long breath and opened the door.

"Yeah, sorry. You were right, I was a mess." He tried to smile but was afraid he came short.

Harry stood by the door with a neatly folded stack of clothes in one hand and a worried crease between his eyebrows. Eggsy looked down at the clothes because looking at Harry felt a bit like looking directly at the sun.

"Those for me?"

"Yes. Though you do look lovely in my robe."

Eggsy grinned shyly "I'd rather sleep in this then, if it's all the same to you."

Harry gave him such a fond look that Eggsy thought he might melt on the spot "I'm often forced to wonder why on earth you even bought pajamas."

Eggsy knew the stitching on the hem he could see, damn well actually from his first and favorite suit, so he smiled and said "Maybe I just liked the tailor."

"I've no doubt." Harry replied, turning back to set the clothes aside and climb into bed. For a moment Eggsy got stuck again, taking in the sight of Harry settling in for the night on his red sheets under the slowly dawning realization that he was expected, hell, wanted, on the side Harry hadn't taken. His feet carried him over though, and he slid between the sheets like a missing puzzle piece. Harry shut out the light, casting the room in darkness only alleviated by the half-moon outside the window.

Eggsy didn't close his eyes. How could he? Harry was settled in beside him, had tucked himself close and draped an arm over Eggsy, and Eggsy couldn't have brought himself to look away if he'd bothered to try. Minutes that felt like seconds later, Harry opened his eyes to look back at him.

"Are you sure you're alright?" he asked quietly.

Eggsy's lips parted on a reply, but he couldn't think of a convincing lie. Instead, boldly, he leaned up and kissed Harry again. Harry let him - he was never going to stop reveling in that - and Eggsy licked his way into Harry's mouth, tasting those stupid pancakes and mouthwash and trying to memorize every second of it. He broke away an age later, his bones all but vibrating, and after the briefest moment of hesitation, he brushed his fingers over the new scar. Eggsy swore Harry's eyes started to shine, but that couldn't be. He let himself draw Harry closer still.

If this was death, he thought, he had to wonder why he hadn't tried it sooner.

* * *

Eggsy snapped awake to the pings of a heart monitor. The sheets reeked of antiseptic, and when he flipped around and threw an arm to the other side of the mattress all he got for the trouble was a bruise from the bed's handrail.

The heart monitor sounded like a techno beat at a rave, but that and Eggsy's rapidly speeding breaths were the only sound in the otherwise empty observation room in Kingsman headquarters. Eggsy started to shake, but hyperventilating brought another bit of information to light: not everything smelled of antiseptic. He looked down and found the hospital gown had been replaced by Harry's robe, still smelling of an aftershave Eggsy had let run out four years before.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked the nurse when he came in to see why the monitor had flat-lined.

Eggsy shoved his feet into his Oxfords and blew by him.

"Home."

Home, as he'd called it, was a hollow shell as always. The other umbrella was gone, the butterflies locked away in a dusty office he never, ever entered, J.B.'s food dish still tucked in the very back of his Tupperware cupboard with the tub-less lids and odd plastic baubles.

After more time searching than was needed he all but collapsed on his couch, head in his hands.

So. Not dead. Insane.

He really did try to take deep breaths and stay calm, but by the time the sun rose he was shaking apart, feeling more alone than he had in _years_ even though what felt like just hours before he'd fallen asleep in Harry's arms. At least he had a damn good reason to be as mental as he was, he decided. But he couldn't stay in the house. One second it was quiet, and then the next, and the next, a yawning void of emptiness that seemed to grow outward and inward until he was grabbing his jacket and nearly flying out the door.

It was a short walk to the cemetery. Roxy had commented once that it was strange, and now had he been thinking, he might have noticed that leaving a silent house at barely six in the morning for all the liveliness of a graveyard didn't make that much sense. But when he finally stood next to the nondescript, polished, grey stone, he felt more whole and at home than he had anywhere else since it had been placed.

"Hey Harry," he greeted. Heedless of his suit, Eggsy sat in the still dewy grass and stared into the name that broke his shadowed reflection. The sun glinted off one corner, glimmering as beads of condensation warmed beneath its rays. For a while Eggsy just sat, his strength misplaced, his heart too heavy to give his voice direction. Two plots over from the Hart plot lay a much more familiar name to him, but it wasn't them he needed now. Roxy was far and away, entombed with the rest of her relatives, but she wouldn't have done either.

"Saw you yesterday," he said at last "you made pancakes. And kissed me."

The stone was silent as always.

"It was wonderful, Harry. And now it feels like I'm the one in the ground. But the whole thing's impossible, innit? Wakin' up someplace you're alive and in love with me, then wakin' up back here. Hell of a psychotic break."

He shifted and took up his usual spot, resting his back against the cool stone.

"It's been five fuckin' years, Harry, and it still feels like I'm missing a limb. Pathetic, that's what it is." He tipped his head back "why'd you have to go and die on me?"

He stayed until the sun climbed another few dozen degrees in the sky, so it beat down and heated his hair until his scalp itched. He didn't feel particularly better when he got up, but as a rule he didn't hang around during the busy hours. If he came too often, his Kingsman-appointed shrink would find out, and there would go his carefully maintained image of a brash and egotistical, but perfectly sane, state of mind.

He really was methodical about it. Just let them try to take Kingsman from him, he'd thought when the soft-looking woman had been assigned to him after the car crash, they'd have to dig it out of his soul beforehand.

The truth was he'd lost everything, and it had all culminated in the grayness of London coming to settle in his bones, in late nights staring at ceilings and recklessness that put him in medical only slightly more often than everyone else. He wondered sometimes if their lives were as stripped bare as his.

Emma-the-psychologist was one of the best in all of the EU, but there was no rule book for the pathology of spies, and fooling her was just a matter of giving her a thread and letting her follow it thinking he wasn't feeding it to her from the other end.

Besides, it wasn't like he didn't talk to anyone. Harry was always a terrific listener.

He thought he was ready when he entered the house, but then his feet turn to lead just inside the doorway. He couldn't walk into his house the same as he'd done just hours ago only to know that the green apron Harry had worn the night before was probably still a pile of spare fabric at the shop, that the canned blueberries collecting dust in the back of his cupboard were still there doing just that.

He didn't move until the old landline he'd forgotten to disconnect for five years straight started ringing, and even then it was slow and he didn't answer until whoever it was called a second time.

"'lo?" He answered, trying to sound normal.

"Galahad! Why aren't you answering your glasses?!"

"My-" he looked around. Hadn't he fallen asleep in them? Where had they gone? "I'm...not sure where they are." He answered slowly.

"You're not sure -" Merlin (the new one, a sharp blonde woman who was younger even than him and who compensated for it by being both amazing and absolutely bull-headed) growled in frustration "You were _not_ authorized to leave observation. Come back in immediately - I'll deal with your glasses when you get here."

"...yeah." Eggsy replied, and hung up.

Where the hell were his glasses?

He knew where he saw them last - on Harry's nightstand, beside Harry's own. Useless for some reason, but there. He'd have seen them if they were still in the observation room. Slowly he trudged up the stairs again and entered the master bedroom reluctantly. Harry's absence was more obvious in here than anywhere else, though he'd been numb to it the day before. Eggsy lived for his job and that was it, which showed. Harry kept books in various stages of completion around the room, had artsy old pictures and yet more butterflies and left tea stains on the polished wood with his cups. Eggsy's version was barren, save his closet full of suits tucked beside skeletons of his past.

That barrenness made it easy to determine that the glasses weren't there either.

Eggsy frowned, but Merlin's rage was a frightening thing, so he strode to the bathroom to wash up before he headed back in. Except he almost slipped and brained himself on the sink when he spotted the red robe he'd woken up in hanging on the wall like a ghost beside its identical twin.


	2. Chapter 2

Eggsy spent twelve more hours in medical studiously not telling anyone about Harry Hart, and after a few harsh words about not losing things or running away, was released to collapse onto his own couch to sleep.

He woke up to J.B. licking his fingers.

"What the fuck is going on," he asked the dog, his eyes still closed.

J.B. yipped helpfully.

He was wearing his glasses. If he somehow lost this pair too Merlin was going to skin him. He lay on the couch and tried to force the world to make sense by the power of thought alone for awhile, until the doorbell rudely interrupted this endeavor. His doorbell was a bit dated, so when whoever it was leaned on the thing it just kept buzzing and buzzing until he heaved himself up in irritation.

"Alright, alright," he grouched. He opened the door and got yet another brutal shock.

"Oh thank god you're back! Why wasn't you answering my calls?"

His mum was standing on the front step, a bookbag over her shoulder, with Daisy cradled fast asleep in her arms. Eggsy's peripheral vision collapsed into dizzying lights as he dented the door with his fingernails.

"Oi, did you just wake up? Eggsy, it's almost noon!"

Eggsy opened his mouth, but hadn't heard anything she'd said and wouldn't have had anything coherent to reply with even if he had.

"My phone...?" he tried, grasping.

"Lost it again, have you? And here I was starting to worry. Look, I hate to do this when you've just got home, but the babysitter's run out on me and I have class in ten minutes, so be a dear and watch Daisy today yeah?"

The girl in question, who Eggsy had yet to tear his eyes from anyway, was tucked into his arms with only moderate gentleness.

"Thanks a bunch love. She don't want to wake up from her nap, seems. I'll see you later." She pressed a kiss to his cheek and ran off down the lane.

Eggsy stood there a good while trying not to burst. Then he walked to the living room, footsteps softer even than the time he'd broken into the Louvre, sat on the couch, and tried not to let his trembling wake Daisy.

What cruel wonders this fantasy world held. It seemed every time he looked around another missing piece of his life slid back into place as if it had never left. A perfect, impossible world, seemingly tailored to him better than even his best suits. Daisy came around, stirring slowly enough to give Eggsy time to wipe his eyes and force his breathing under control. Eventually she yawned a cute little yawn and looked up at him, smiling like the sun.

"Eggsy!" she said happily.

Eggsy bit back a hurt sound and hugged her tight as his eyes burned again. His Daisy had never reached the age where she got his name right. The little girl in his arms looked ready to start kindergarten - maybe even first grade. Daisy took this in stride and hugged back, then wiggled around a bit with all the excess energy the extra sleep had given her. Eggsy laughed, not a little brokenly.

Real or imaginary, alive or dead, he could no sooner give up the chance at one more day with Daisy than he could keep it from destroying him.

"What do you wanna do today, Dais? You name it, anything you want."

* * *

Elsewhere, Harry strode through the halls of Kingsman like a hurricane. He'd laid awake for hours and hours and then suddenly woke up to find his bed empty save himself with no recollection of sleeping. He refused to believe the night had been a dream. There was no logic behind the decision, just denial buried under a grief so heavy he was somewhat surprised he was still breathing.

He'd searched the house - hell, he'd searched the block, but there had been no sign of Eggsy anywhere. So he'd gone to the next place Eggsy might fly to at odd hours of the morning - Kingsman headquarters. For a moment as he dressed the thought that it had been a very vivid hallucination had stolen unbidden into his mind.

But he'd left his glasses. Them, and the ruined suit that Harry half believed was so because Eggsy had crawled from his own grave and walked home in it.

Kingsman headquarters turned out not to be the best of destinations, both because Eggsy was nowhere to be found and because Merlin was usually everywhere within its walls.

"Harry?" Merlin greeted when Harry inevitably stumbled across him. His eyes were wide and concerned, though he looked the worse for wear himself "What are you doing here?"

While a lack of logic was prevalent in his mind, he was still spy enough to deduce one very apparent thing from the start of the conversation: Eggsy was neither in the mansion nor believed alive.

Which meant he was missing, run off to wherever men nearly two weeks dead go during the daylight hours.

"I need to work." Harry replied.

So Harry went to work. There was nothing else to do. After all, the entire plot of making pancakes at an inappropriate time to lure back the dead hinged on it being an inappropriate time.

Later Harry was blazing through the backup of dossiers on his desk when he received a text: _'Eggsy sez he's lost his fone. cn u tell him I'm running l8 2 pick up Dais?'_

He shot up from his desk, almost knocking his chair over in his haste. Merlin looked at him sharply.

"I have to go." Harry said, already halfway out the door.

He'd seen Pet Cemetery. He'd let Eggsy ruin him if it came to that, but he'd never forgive himself if the boy did something to Daisy.

* * *

The sun had long set and if he had to hazard a guess, Daisy was up well beyond her bedtime, when Eggsy heard the front door open. Harry was in the living room a second later, strangely panicked as he looked between Eggsy and Daisy.

He took Eggsy's breath away. Somehow he'd forgotten the way he held himself with such an air of dignity, the way he looked so comfortable in his regal suits. Now that Eggsy was a fully minted Kingsman, he could see the danger he contained beneath his skin like it was just a layer of crystal glass, and it was wonderful.

"Harry!" Daisy cried excitedly, breaking Eggsy out of his trance by racing over to hug Harry's legs and grin.

Harry blinked out of his stupor then and swung her up into his arms. Eggsy fell just a little bit more in love with him at his easy camaraderie, by such deadliness being so gentle.

"Hello Princess," he greeted "shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Eggsy let me stay up to see you. We went to the zoo! And saw Wonder Woman! Did you know she's a god?!"

Harry laughed "I certainly didn't, but I do now."

He looked at Eggsy again at last, and Eggsy smiled. All the tension seemed to bleed out of him at once at that and he offered a tentative smile back.

"Well, I'm glad you two have had such a wonderful day," he addressed Daisy again "but I think your mother will be quite upset if she comes back to find you still awake."

Daisy pouted, but it broke on a yawn. "Only if you tell me a story," she bargained.

"Oh, of course. What kind of world would this be if little girls didn't get stories before bed?"

What kind of world indeed, Eggsy agreed.

Later, after he apologized to his mum sheepishly for maybe letting Daisy have more ice cream over the day than real food and thoroughly ruining her sleep schedule, and hugged her a little too long before she left, Harry came up behind him and drew him back against his chest, kissed up his neck, and turned his chin so he could devour Eggsy's lips. Eggsy let it hold him together.

He did try to talk to him once, but it went like this:

"Harry."

"Yes, my love?"

"...never mind."

He clung to awareness until four in the morning, when the world suddenly lurched and he passed out.

* * *

When he woke up in the empty version of his and Harry's house, he pulled out Daisy's favorite stuffed bear from the closet, its fur still permanently coarse on one side from being too close to the burning wreckage of the car, and he sobbed. They weren't pretty sobs, either, they were the kind that tore from his chest, the kind he hadn't cried since that hazy day in his memory when he was holding her hand in the fucking burn ward and the monitor went flat, half screams and half tears and all agony. If the neighbors heard him, he figured they were the spare set anyway.

He wanted to go back to sleep. He wondered if a coma would keep him there, in that perfect fantasy where Harry cooked him dinner and went to sleep beside him, and J.B. took heart medicine with his kibble, and his mum and little sister didn't burn to death in a car crash coming home from vacation.

After a while he realized he'd stopped. He was staring at the wall, somewhere in the ballpark of where his glasses were flashing on the nightstand. With strength he pulled from hours before, from sitting at home with Daisy and Harry and J.B., he stood. He cleaned up, got changed, and checked the glasses.

New mission in Iceland.

Eggsy half expected to wake up In Reykjavík with glasses that wouldn't function and have to slum it until he fell asleep. He half expected to wake up in Reykjavík with glasses that did function and snap.

He woke up in the morning alone on Harry's red sheets.

So, he thought, this was going to keep happening.

He'd lived so long with the hollows in his heart where his loved ones used to be that he'd hardly noticed when his heart shrank around them, or so it must have, since as he wandered around the house alone his chest felt tight from trying to fit them all back in.

He needed to talk to someone. Harry alive wasn't as easy to bare his heart to as Harry dead seemed to be, but before he thought much of it his feet had taken him to the graveyard again, twice in nearly as many days.

He wandered to the normal spot and let himself feel disoriented at the glorious sight of three missing headstones. He dared to dream that there was a fourth empty grave far off on other posh land, too.

There was one grave left that he could visit there, though, old and mossy as it was. Harry had made sure Lee was well taken care of, having him buried in such a nice place.

"Hey dad," he said, and settled down in the grass.

* * *

When he got the chance, Eggsy wondered how the hell it all worked. His Kingsman glasses had come with him the first time, and he'd had to get them replaced after he forgot them on the nightstand only to have them stay behind. He woke up in his normal world almost always exactly where he went to sleep, but in the other one, the better one, half the time he'd been thrown to the couch or woke up later than he had since secondary school or something of the sort. Sometime during the second week he connected that he always woke up _alone_ , and the fact that he also went to sleep alone in his darker timeline might have had something to do with it.

Harry didn't seem to find anything strange about it. He always came home before the sun set, smiling at the sight of Eggsy re-appeared in his house as if it had always been their usual routine. If Eggsy thought he'd loved the man before, he'd been dead wrong. Or maybe he'd been right, but the fact that he'd been able to go on living after Harry died was proof enough that he loved Harry a great deal more now, because every second he spent on missions in his world, where he knew there was no Harry Hart, was agony, one he only got through at the thought of sleep, and of waking in some random place to wait for his return.

It struck him as strange, how Harry just accepted that he did practically nothing all day. It certainly encouraged his theory that the place was just some sort of dream land he'd created for himself. He should probably snoop, but a part of him was still too terrified that one little push would shatter the illusion to try.

So he did the sensible thing, which was milk the fuck out of the situation for as long as he possibly could. Harry invariably came home around five in the evening, which was also weird, what with him being a spy and all, and Eggsy fell so much harder so much faster than the first time he might have gotten some sort of heart whiplash from it. His mum had apparently gone back to nursing school, and as Eggsy was more than willing to help out she dropped Daisy off or came to dinner a few times a week. It was one of those times when Daisy had been left in his care that he accidentally stumbled over the case-breaking clue.


	3. Chapter 3

"Can we go see the circus again?" Daisy asked, tugging on his hand as she finished off the last of her chips from their late lunch.

"Next time, Dais. We don't have enough time to enjoy it. Harry will be back soon, and we gotta get him to eat a proper dinner."

Thankfully Daisy found this an acceptable excuse - probably because of that 'again', seeing as they'd already been three days before. Eggsy hailed a cab to take them home. It was a bit busy and took some time, but one drew up to the curb after a bit. He was just about to climb in when someone interrupted him.

"Excuse me, would you mind terribly if we took this one?" asked the most sugary-sweet voice Eggsy had ever heard. It was so clearly fake that he was already smiling a bit when he turned. A very old man leaned on his cane by Eggsy's elbow, smiling in a gentlemanly manner even though if Eggsy had to guess, under normal circumstances butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "I'm afraid my shoulders aren't as good for hailing as they used to be."

"Sure thing, gov, it's all yours," he stepped back and held the door for him. Eggsy couldn't place it - there was just something he liked about the man. Daisy leaned forward too - and well, if his little sister liked him, he couldn't be bad at all.

"Thank you very much, young man," he said, then glanced over his shoulder "Guy, hurry up, I've solved your problems again."

"You've never once solved my problems, Tommy," replied an equally old voice, and a pile of boutique boxes with legs tottered over "Only ever made my life more complicated."

"Here, let me help with that," Eggsy took the top half before anyone could protest, earning a few quick thank yous. Once he was a few paces back and the person behind the boxes was revealed, he froze up mid step.

Peering around the edge of the boxes was Guy Bennett.

Guy Bennett was roughly one-hundred and five (roughly, because he was apparently born before they kept decent records of that sort of thing, or potentially started counting time). He was also a reclusive, lonely old informant to the Russians who'd turned aspiring physicist around the time most people did the sensible thing and died of old age. Thirty years after that, he'd put Eggsy in the infirmary with a bomb that was a resounding dud.

The day before he'd woken up in Scotland and come home to find Harry cooking him dinner.

Not a dud after all, was it?

While he was realizing all this, Guy didn't even have the grace to notice him. To be fair, he looked so smitten as he hobbled up to Tommy with a blinding grin that the whole of London could have probably vanished in a puff of smoke and he'd have been none the wiser.

"You love it," Tommy replied primly.

"Always," Bennett leaned over and kissed whoever it was with him on the cheek before swinging around to deposit his load of parcels in the trunk of the cab, which the cabbie had opened for them seeing that Eggsy was quite stuck.

"Oh come now, it's the twenty first century," Tommy muttered, and Eggsy realized it was at him.

"What?" he forced out, sounding a bit strangled.

"It's not so strange to see two men together, is it?" Tommy continued grumpily "I'm telling you, Guy, if communism-"

"See what communism got the Russian gays." Guy replied, still piling the boxes into the trunk of the cab "I, for one, haven't met a government worth its salt at enforcing equality."

"What?" Eggsy says again, then "Oh. No. I'm also - it's just that Mr. Bennet and I know each other."

Now Bennett looked at him, finally, and his happy little grin faded away. Tommy observed this, squinting at them both for a long moment, before frowning at them.

"Honestly, Guy, you told me you'd quit!" he cried eventually, thumping his cane against the ground.

"I have!" Guy insisted, turning back to Tommy in a rush "Look, he's just -"

"I'm his tailor," Eggsy offered, giving his best charming grin. He'd seen weirder things in the past few weeks than Guy Bennett, so he sauntered off to put the rest of their things in the cab.

While he was close, Bennett said quietly, so Tommy wouldn't hear "I'm afraid I don't know you, my boy-"

"Don't give me that shit. You know me." Eggsy looked at him hard, but shut the trunk before Bennett could say any more.

"Are you Harry's dad?" asked a little voice, and Eggsy promptly gave up their staring contest to locate his little sister. He found her looking timidly up at Tommy, her hands set on his cane curiously.

"Daisy, love, don't bother the nice man," he started back round the cab, but Tommy waved him off.

"She's alright. Who's Harry?"

"My-" he paused. He'd never had to put this to words. Tommy nodded before he had to try.

"Ah. No, dear, I'm afraid I don't know any Harry's."

"But you look like him."

Eggsy tilted his head and looked at Tommy again and - yeah, actually, if Harry were roughly a hundred years old, which this man probably was. He beamed and picked Daisy up, much to her chagrin.

"Hey, yeah! I knew there was somethin' I liked about you."

"Well, I'm terribly sorry we've stolen your cab, my boy, but we ought to get home," Guy said before any more on the matter was discussed. Tommy went from raising his eyebrows to glowering, and Eggsy had to wince for Guy. They would talk later, but he had to assume that look meant that nothing Eggsy would be saying would be quite as bad as the earful he was about to get in the cab.

"'Course, no worries. See you around Guy, nice meetin' you Tommy." Guy had the foresight to grimace, though it had more to do with Tommy's glare than anything Eggsy had said, he suspected.

* * *

He dropped Daisy off at his mum's new place, stayed and talked for a bit before heading home. She was doing alright for herself, here, and it was good to see. She sent him away with a tin of something vaguely cheesy for dinner - she'd never been a big cook, but she was still his mum, so there was a good chance he'd like it anyway while Harry would grin and bear it.

No sooner had he stepped through the door when a loud crash echoed through the house, followed by a much quieter curse.

"Harry? You alright love?"

He strode into the dining room, then on into the living room when Harry's cursing continued elsewhere. Eggsy eventually found him by a closet he'd never seen fit to open, frowning as he tried to gather up all the junk that surrounded him on the floor while J.B. trotted around, excited by the new things. Harry was already out of his suit and dressed in a cardigan and only mildly posh trousers. Harry had no right looking as good as he did in the outfit, but Eggsy had grown bias - Harry in armor was the kind of hot that had him rubbing one out in the barracks at twenty-four; Harry in comfortable, soft fabrics as he inhabited their shared house was the wet dream of his thirties.

"Eggsy, you're home," Harry said when Eggsy came closer, pushing himself to his feet "I didn't hear you come in." He pulled Eggsy into a kiss, one that was meant to be quick until Eggsy caught him about the waist and drew him in, parting his lips so he could taste whatever mildly healthy thing Merlin had forced on him for lunch that day and relishing it when Harry's hands came up to bracket his face, easily accepting Eggsy's affection.

Eggsy'd gotten better at this. Alright, he'd gotten damn good, actually, once he got past the paralytic shock of kissing Harry Hart and had applied his passion for greatness into learning exactly how Harry liked to be kissed. It still set his heart pounding, still left him a bit breathless and weak in the knees and sorely tempted to find out just what else he could puzzle out about Harry's body, but his bravery only extended so far. When he eventually drew back Harry nuzzled into his cheek before pulling away and casting a dubious look at the container in Eggsy's free hand.

"Probably because you was busy wreckin' the house." Eggsy said, taking up the neglected thread of their conversation and gesturing to the floor. "What is all this?"

"Yes, well. I heard you were taking care of Daisy, and since she's been into dolphins lately I thought I'd go looking for the stuffed one I picked up as a souvenir once."

Eggsy smiled "You're sweet, love. Maybe try not to kill yourself over it though, yeah?"

Harry scoffed "If I can handle small armies bare-handed, I think I can handle a closet full of odds and ends alright."

"If you say so. Tell you what, why don't I help you get all this back in there, and then we can eat dinner, and after that I'll help you look?" Harry gave the container in his hands another glance, his gaze following it as Eggsy set it aside "and if you really hate it, I won't even be upset if you order take-away."

"We have a deal." Harry agreed readily.

Cleaning up the closet wasn't that bad, but apparently the food was. As expected, Eggsy, having been indoctrinated to the wonders of five-star cuisine, recognized that it wasn't a masterpiece, but loved it anyway, and also as expected, Harry was having none of it.

"Order two days' worth," Eggsy suggested while Harry was on the phone with the Chinese place down the street "there's about a pound of cheese alone in this, and I won't be finishing it tonight."

"I certainly hope not," Harry agreed.

While they waited they returned to digging in the closets, all of which were apparently stacked like MacCaulay Culkin was planning to use them to defeat a group of burglars. Eventually the doorbell rang, and Harry shooed him off as he dug into a high shelf.

"Damn," Harry muttered as he went, and Eggsy had half a mind to turn back anyway.

"Didn't I tell you to wait?"

"It's nothing to worry about, darling. The record player's just decided to leap out at me."

"We have a record player? I've been living here for years and I had no idea-" he cut off abruptly when he turned to greet the person on their doorstep - who was certainly not the delivery boy.

"Eggsy!" suddenly Eggsy found himself with an armful of blonde agent.

"Roxy, Jesus fuck," he greeted. He was getting better at this too - the last few times he hadn't been able to speak. He had no context, but whatever - something had made this a hugging occasion, and he was more than happy to cling a bit. He'd missed this girl like a lost limb.

"Fuck, I hate deep cover missions. Did you hear that Galahad!?" the last she yelled into the house "I hate deep cover! I haven't had tea in three months!"

Harry came into the hall, and strangely he looked a touch pale. If something was bothering him, however, he didn't let it show beyond that.

"Noted, Lancelot. I'll make sure to only recommend you for deep cover missions in countries that appreciate tea."

Recommend? If Harry had that kind of power, Roxy being alive made a bit more sense. Harry wouldn't have stood for a delayed a rescue - and even if he hadn't managed to sway the counsel, Eggsy guessed he wouldn't have been alone when he flew off the handle and straight on to Bolivia to dig her out himself. He had yet to let go of Roxy and had half a mind not to for the rest of the night, though he suspected that would get a bit awkward.

"That's not what I meant and you know it." Roxy muttered, drawing away finally.

Now that he had a better vantage point he could see she was brown as a nut and her hair gone platinum from the sun of where ever she had been. He had a flash-flood of thoughts as he took in the way her smile seemed to stay on her face even as she pouted at Harry, the product of laugh lines starting to take root. They were both thirty already, he realized, blinking in confusion. When had that happened?

"Eggsy, don't make the poor woman stand on the doorstep all night. Didn't you hear what she said about tea?" Harry said, startling him out of his trance and into a laugh.

"Yeah, get in here. Harry has an entire shrine to tea."

"I know. Did you think I was here to see _you_?" she breezed by him grinning "And what's this I hear about a record player?"

"Well, I might have told you if you weren't just here for the tea."

"If you take some of his mother's latest creation, I'll even let you pick a song." Harry contradicted.

"Oi! That wasn't the deal."

"Saying you'll finish it in two days is very optimistic." Harry replied, "I'm only trying to save your digestive system."

"What's in it?" Roxy called from the kitchen.

"Cheese, that I can identify." Harry replied.

"Oh, god yes!"

Eggsy laughed "Where the fuck's she been?"

Harry, who'd been turning to go after her, paused to look at him. "You were briefed on the mission," he said slowly, and Eggsy's shoulders tensed.

"Right, 'course, I just meant it like-"

"Mexico," Harry interrupted, as if nothing strange had happened, and breezed away leaving Eggsy feeling wrong-footed. "Roxanne, would you perhaps like a plate?" Harry's voice floated back to him a moment later, all false pleasantry veiling a thick sarcasm.

"No," came her muffled reply.

Eggsy shook himself. He'd slipped up, but he did that sometimes and Harry usually rolled with it. It was fine. He strolled into the kitchen after them and smiled in spite of himself at the image they made, Harry sipping tea while Roxy tore into what remained of Eggsy's leftover dinner.

"Your mum is a god," she said appreciatively.

"If you finish that you're going to have to take some of Harry's Chinese too. He ordered enough for an army."

"I love you both. The only thing that could make this better is beer."

"Ask and ye shall receive," Eggsy grinned.

They all ended up in the living room, empty takeout containers scattered about and drinks in hand while the record player, set up as promised, spun out old music in the corner. Two boxes of old records (and, finally, a dusty, stuffed yellow dolphin) had been unearthed at length from the closet, many of which were now scattered about on the floor by the turntable.

It took no small amount of drink to get them tipsy, but they were managing it. Eggsy had trouble deciding who to look at most of the time - Harry, who smiled more as the drink went to his head and gave Eggsy some sort of affection-induced heart murmur, and Roxy, loud and boisterous and very much alive. Roxy was complaining about some smuggler or other who'd driven her nuts her entire mission, gesturing in agitation, when something shiny on her hand caught the light.

"Oi, Roxy, you forget to take that off?" Eggsy asked, pointing at her left hand where one solid gold ring gleamed above another with an inset diamond.

Roxy blinked at him, and neither of them noticed Harry pause in changing the record.

"What are you on about, Eggsy? It's my wedding ring."

Eggsy stared for a while, then smiled slowly. "'Course. This must be going to my head," he swished his Guinness around with more coordination than the statement implied.

"You were my best man," Roxy said incredulously "You and Harry fucked in the coat closet not ten minutes after Merlin and I said our vows!" Eggsy blinked and Harry caught the moment when Eggsy's eyes got a little bit wider and his mouth formed the first syllable of Merlin's name without sound. "There isn't enough spirit in the world to make you forget something like that. I would know." She shuddered and downed the last of her beer.

"God that's good!" she said, lowering the empty bottle, and perking up as a new song started "The Clash? Harry, you rebel!" she grinned "This song is great. We should dance!"

"In here? There's no room." Eggsy said.

Roxy gave him a look.

"Harry, incidentally, is everything in this room bolted to the floor?" she asked innocently.

"No, not as such." Harry replied.

"Then, Eggsy, I propose the radical notion that we fucking _make_ room."

And that was how Eggsy ended up shoving all the living room furniture up against the walls with Roxy and Harry. The song was nearly over when they'd finished, even though the room was somewhat sparse, so Harry was obliged to restart it. (Both Roxy and Eggsy insisted they knew how to change and start the records, but staunchly refused to do so with the manner of very practiced bluffers. Harry suspected at least one of them did not, in fact, know how).

Because both Roxy and Eggsy were starting to feel the effects of their attempt at getting plastered, neither found it embarrassing to dance like fools in the living room while Harry, whom they at first failed to notice, look on in amusement. But then they did notice, (because they were very observant spies, Roxy insisted when Eggsy pointed it out, though really Eggsy had just been looking for him).

"Harry, dance with us!" He called, and Harry quickly shook his head.

"Oh, no, I can't dance."

"What?" Roxy cried "You're the one who taught us!"

Now there was an image that slowed Eggsy's terribly unflattering movements. Harry teaching him how to dance. Harry guiding him with a softer hand and more dark promise than Amelia the narc, who he'd learned from back in the hollow world.

"That was ballroom, it's quite a different thing," Harry was saying when he blinked back to reality.

"Harry," Roxy began, marching up to him "You got me sent to Mexico for three months, the least you can do is dance with me and your boy-toy for a few songs."

"Oi," Eggsy muttered, though he figured he'd have been annoyed by the majority of the significant-other-type names she could have chosen.

"Alright, alright, one song. And leave your phones on the table where I can see them - I don't need any evidence of this floating around."

Roxy cheered in triumph, and Eggsy was glad he was already expected to dance. His best friend was alive, he was pleasantly drunk, and the love of his life was making his way back over to the record player while Roxy crowed for The Rolling Stones, all while Harry complained that those songs were too long but picked one out anyway and J.B. ran excitedly around their feet.

And that was it, wasn't it, he thought. Harry was the love of his life. No one had ever compared to him - and how could they? Holding anyone to the standard Harry set was just unfair.

He felt a bit bad mooning over Harry on what was technically his first night seeing Roxy in two years, and his first confirmation that she was alive besides, but she was a good mate, and she was married so he figured she'd understand.

A thought struck him, the way thoughts did when one was drunk and had low inhibitions, and he looked between her left hand and Harry's nervous smile.

Married.

Wasn't that a concept.

Harry turned and caught him staring with whatever dumb look the train of thought had put on his face and stopped in mid-step. Roxy swanned by, already moving to the new song, temporarily oblivious to the atmosphere. As the song slowly picked up the way seventies rock did, Harry took him in, and then all at once the tension Eggsy hadn't even realized had been singing in him since Roxy got there bled away, and he smiled warmly back.

"Hey, lovebirds!" Roxy elbowed Eggsy in the side "I was promised terrible dancing for six minutes!"

Roxy got some impressively terrible dancing for nearly half an hour, as it turned out, as Eggsy did know how to change the records and would hardly let one song end before another was on, and he found it very unfortunate that Harry had made them give up their phones.

Eventually, between one record and the next, Roxy's phone buzzed off the coffee table and onto the rug, where J.B. immediately set about murdering it.

"J.B.!" Roxy shouted, running to its rescue just in time. She wiped the drool off it and squinted at the message "It's Merlin. I guess he did decide to go home after all. He's wondering where I am." Eggsy cooed at her and she made a rude gesture back "I should go home," she said, a touch wistfully.

Eggsy glanced at the clock and was surprised to find it nearing midnight.

"Yeah, 'course. Gotta keep your wizard happy," he smiled. Roxy and fuckin' Merlin. So much for not dating agents. He bit back a laugh - maybe he married her before they'd dated, just to nip the comments in the bud.

She shrugged on the blazer she'd lost at some point in the night and Eggsy made his way over to sweep her up in another hug. Somehow, the ache that had lessened over the years was more apparent as it went away. Maybe he'd just grown numb to it.

"Eggsy, are you secretly in love with me?" she asked when he took too long to let go.

"Sorry Rox, you're just not my type."

She laughed as he let her go "I know your type, that's a compliment."

"I beg your pardon?" Harry said, but he was smiling "Merlin and I aren't so different, you know. He's my best friend."

"You could not be more different. He's the least reckless person I know."

"You give him a rifle and bet him fifty quid he can't take out a hundred men with seventy bullets, then you come tell me who isn't reckless," Harry muttered, apparently from experience, and Eggsy made a mental note to ask while it seemed Roxy made one to forget she ever heard anything.

"Well, I'd best be off," she said, and Eggsy bid her goodbye and started back for the living room. Before she made it to the door, however, Harry caught her arm.

"Roxy, a word."

She followed him into the foyer, where he stopped and spoke low so Eggsy couldn't hear. "You mustn't tell anyone else about this," he said, quiet but fierce. Roxy's smile faded at his tone.

"Harry, your dancing isn't _that_ bad-"

Harry shook his head with gravity "Not about tonight. I mean about Eggsy."

Roxy blinked, cocking her head "What about him?"

"When did you get back from you mission?"

"Just before I came over, Merlin gave me the night off to sleep before debriefing, but the git stayed at the office so I came here."

Harry nodded "He did so because in the morning he intends to tell you that Eggsy died last month in Scotland."

Roxy stiffened, her eyes darting back the way they'd come "What? Why would he do that? Eggsy's right there."

"Yes, and he shouldn't be." Harry's eyes were glittering, fierce and insistent.

"Harry, Merlin must know already -"

"He doesn't," Harry shook his head "Roxanne, as a favor to me. Please."

Roxy considered this, a plea to keep a secret from her husband, and found that something about the faint desperation Harry was burying under his authoritative posture compelled her to think that she might "Tell me why."

Harry glanced back now too. "Eggsy's waiting."

"He's my friend Harry. And you're asking me to fake grieving to my husband. Tell me."

"Because I'm not sure how long he'll be here." Harry snapped "He walked through this door ten days after we, after _I,_ pulled his burned corpse out of the wreckage and hasn't said a damn word about it. He _disappears_ , Roxy, though something forces me to sleep wherever I am before I can see it. He doesn't-" he swallowed hard, his voice losing some of its fervor "He doesn't know me. Not like he did. He was gone for a week but he acts like it was years. You must have noticed how he had no idea that you and Merlin were married."

Roxy was blinking at him, pale and worried now "Harry, we should go to Merlin. He'll be able to test -"

"We have tested him, Lancelot, though Merlin doesn't know it. Ask him, we found nothing at the blast site and nothing on any of the things I've brought in from Eggsy himself. Eggsy has no damn business being alive but there's nothing - "

"Harry! Why'd you hide Asia at the bottom?" Eggsy called.

His mouth clicked shut, and he looked imploringly at Roxy.

Roxy shifted on her feet, then said after such a long time that Harry had nearly started to fidget "Fine. But not forever, Harry."

"Fair enough," he nodded. Eventually Eggsy's existence would either come to light or cease all together, but so long as the latter was on the table as a possibility, he hoped neither would come to pass.

Roxy left looking far less buoyant than she had, letting a Kingsman cab drive itself to her home, and Harry returned to the living room to find Eggsy rummaging through the boxes of records on the floor still, acting as though he hadn't spent the night confirming Harry's fears that he knew nothing of a good portion of his life. He had half a mind to say it wasn't really him, but then the look - only Eggsy ever looked at him like he was the whole world that particular way. And so long as this was Eggsy, he'd take him in any form that was granted, whether amnesiac or something more sinister, or simply less familiar.

"I thought you wanted to listen to Asia?" Harry asked, finding no record was on the turntable.

"Thought better of it. All you have is Sole Survivor, you morbid fuck." Eggsy said, pulling something else from the dredges of the box.

"Not a fan?"

"Nah," Eggsy said, and turned away brandishing a much older disk with far less respect than it deserved "'sides, I found somethin' better. You've been holding out on us." Eggsy set the record spinning and the first few notes rang clear in the air. While he was there he shut off the lights, leaving Harry to squint at faint shadows while his vision adjusted.

Harry raised an eyebrow "Sinatra?"

"'S a good song." Eggsy shrugged, walking back and bowing dramatically "May I have this dance?"

Harry smiled in spite of himself. "That's not what I taught you," he took Eggsy's hand anyway.

"I guess it's a good thing you're giving me a refresher, then."

Their living room looked out the back of the house into a lovely square, and though the light of the city blotted out the stars, the streetlight outside was out in both worlds, and the moon was full and so bright that it cut through the yellow glow of London, illuminating the room in a soft, gentle white.

As Sinatra's velvet voice filled the living room Harry drew Eggsy close and lead him through a dance he was much better at. Eggsy followed him - well, perfectly, which was odd, since Eggsy usually misstepped, or flared out on purpose, never quite as used ballroom the way Harry wasn't used to freestyle. This time, Eggsy was calling his steps before he took them and using that easy knowledge to draw closer, tuck himself against Harry's chest until they were barely a breath apart.

"We've the devil's luck, darling." Harry murmured, only just then aware that he'd rested his forehead to Eggsy's.

A quick smile, gone in a flash, flickered over Eggsy's lips. Sinatra crooned for just a bit longer about love before the short song trailed off, and Harry paused but didn't draw away. Couldn't if he tried, probably.

Eggsy looked up at him, eyes dark even for the dim light "Harry," he said, low and full of promise "Take me to bed."

Harry's lips parted, but if he'd planned to say something, he forwent it to close the short distance left between them. Maybe Eggsy was still starving and desperate after a month of rationed time with Harry following five years without, maybe he was overconfident from the beer, maybe he was giddy with the prospect of finally doing something other than sleep in Harry's bed - whatever it was, something set him on fire with the kind of zeal that most religions had trouble inspiring. He surged up into the kiss, threading his fingers into Harry's hair and parting his lips to lick into Harry's open mouth. Harry made a soft noise in his throat and moved to grip Eggsy's shoulders, kissing back far too gently for Eggsy's taste. Eggsy pressed forward harder and backed him into the wall on the opposite side of the stairs.

Eggsy kissed him within an inch of his life, until both of their lips were red and swollen, his cock hard in his trousers and Harry's pressing into his thigh. He worked the buttons on Harry's cardigan open and shucked the thing to the floor, the buttons on the shirt underneath following quickly. His hands had just migrated to Harry's belt when Harry pressed him back, insistent.

"Bed, Eggsy," Harry said firmly, and Eggsy nodded, moving back just enough to let him turn the corner and start up the stairs. Eggsy didn't let go of his hand, trailing close behind until they were at the bedroom door, closed to keep J.B. out.

Eggsy'd had his fair fucking share of honeypot missions, and even if some part of his heart was trembling and nervous, he had enough experience and drive to keep his hands and voice steady when he pressed himself flush to Harry's back and pinned the hand he was holding to door above his head, making the older man gasp.

"If you'd rather not bother with the door," Eggsy breathed hotly into Harry's ear, sliding his other hand down to drag his palm over the hard line of Harry's cock "I wouldn't mind going to my knees right here and licking you open until you can't stand."

"My _god_ , Eggsy," Harry moaned, and then there was the powerful agent all of a sudden, woken from the depths of whatever gentle calm Harry had been floating in until now. Eggsy blinked and found his back slammed against the still-shut door, Harry's hands holding his wrists above his head and lips savage against his own, one knee shoved between his legs making him moan. Harry didn't linger long, kissing and nipping down his jaw, then along the column of his neck. He freed a hand to pull off the quickest one-handed unbuttoning of a shirt Eggsy had ever seen, and Eggsy laughed incredulously until Harry's lips traveled down the newly exposed skin.

"Fuck," Eggsy thunked his head back against the door, arching into it, content to let Harry take him apart for a bit. He didn't disappoint. Harry kissed and sucked his way down Eggsy's chest, pausing to pay special attention to his nipples like he knew how much Eggsy liked it - fuck, maybe he did, that wasn't fair - to his hips just above his belt. He let Eggsy's hands go entirely and Eggsy's cock turned to iron when he realized what Harry was doing, sinking to his knees and drawing Eggsy's trousers and pants down as he went, belt already dealt with while Eggsy was reeling and distracted.

"Harry," he moaned, jerking when Harry's right hand encircled the base of his length, the other coming to rest on his thigh, holding him still as much as it was holding him up. Eggsy looked down at him and his fingernails curled uselessly into the door at what he saw: Harry, his hair disheveled and his eyes dark, his lips, already bitten-red and inviting, hovering close to Eggsy's cock. Harry seemed to have been waiting for him to look, because a second later he took Eggsy into his mouth without so much as a wink to warn him.

Eggsy's hands shot forward as he hunched to grab onto Harry's shoulders, a shout escaping his lips as Harry hollowed his cheeks and set a quick pace, slowing every so often to trace his tongue along the underside of his shaft and press it flat against the leaking head. Eggsy was panting and making embarrassing little noises in his throat in less than a minute, and then Harry suddenly took him _deeper_ , pressing his nose to Eggsy's abdomen, seemingly unconcerned as Eggsy's cock bumped the back of his throat, and Eggsy had to bite hard on his cheek to keep from coming on the spot.

"Harry, Harry, fuck, wait," he whined even as Harry pulled back "you keep that up and this ends right here," he panted, and Harry drew off with a wicked smirk.

"You seemed fine with that plan not a few moments ago, darling."

Harry's voice was low and rough, and it undid him. Eggsy fisted both hands in his shirt and hauled him up into another brutal kiss that didn't slow when the door fell away from his back and they stumbled into the bedroom.

He didn't even make a conscious decision to do it, just followed the increasing borders of Harry's exposed skin as they shed the rest of their clothes until Harry was lying on the sheets and Eggsy was slicking his fingers with the lube Harry'd dug from the nightstand.

He paused, looking at Harry, who'd propped himself up on his elbows to watch him, and found Harry transfixed by his chest, specifically the wide red scar that started just to the left of his heart and curved downward to swoop under his ribs and onto his back. It'd almost killed him, that wound, but that was back when his world had still been in its death throes and he'd had a few things left to hold on for. He was actually covered in scars - same as Harry, he saw now, though maybe that should have worried him. Harry'd been an agent a couple decades longer, after all.

"Is this ok?" he asked, drawing Harry's attention back by pressing a slick finger between his cheeks. Harry shook himself and lay back against the pillows invitingly. "If you're sure you can last," he quipped.

Oh, _as if_ Eggsy wouldn't last. Alright, so maybe it would be easy not to, but that had been a dare. Harry was in for the ride of his life now. Harry's little smirk faltered and interest flashed in his eyes, so Eggsy figured his resolve showed on his face.

He stalled any further conversation by sliding one finger in to the knuckle, relishing the way Harry's breath hitched, his legs edging wider invitingly. Eggsy went slow, both because it felt like a fucking religious experience working Harry open and because he wanted to drive him mad. Harry arched when Eggsy finally slid a third finger into his tight heat, over-slick with lube, one hand fisting on the pillowcase by his head.

"Enough, Eggsy, hurry up," he insisted, and Eggsy moved to hover over him, a sly grin spreading on his lips.

"Nah love, I'm just getting started."

He'd been purposely avoiding Harry's prostate, but now he twisted his fingers just so, pressing up and watched, enraptured, as Harry arched on a shocked cry. Fuck, he thought, maybe Harry had something with that shot about his stamina. God, he looked so good flushed and panting while Eggsy worked out a torturous rhythm against his prostate, fucking Harry to incoherence on his fingers. While he did he kissed and sucked marks across Harry's collarbone, down his chest, seeking out and assaulting any spot that got a sharper gasp or quiet moan.

It wasn't long before he had Harry writhing against him, begging with little fractured pleas that he only granted when they amounted to _more_ , his belly shining with the copious amounts of precome leaking from his cock.

"Eggsy, for god's sake-" he managed eventually, his voice wrecked "please, _fuck me."_

Finally, Eggsy relented, because that sounded like a fucking stellar idea. He pulled his fingers out carefully and moved up to capture Harry's lips in a sloppy, needy kiss, drawing his legs wider and up as he settled between them. He fumbled with the lube again, slicking his cock, and figured Harry might actually kill him if he asked, so he lined himself up and pressed in. Harry threw his head back on the pillow, gasping and arching into him, and Eggsy had to close his eyes against the feeling of Harry taking him in, hot and tight and so fucking good.

"Ffffuck," Eggsy moaned when he was all the way in, and then can't seem to shut the hell up "you feel like a fuckin' dream, Harry, god, so good, you're so good for me, Har-"

Harry dragged him back down and didn't so much kiss him as bite him somewhat kindly, which what was left of Eggsy's brain read as an invitation to shut the hell up, though it returned not silence but the idea that Harry had liked it too much and he should say more at his earliest opportunity. Eventually Harry dropped back panting, his eyes almost black as he looked at Eggsy.

"Hurry," he implored, and Eggsy couldn't help but smirk.

"Worried you won't last?" he asked, though if he was being honest he was close.

"You little-" he started, and Eggsy leaned over so he could bracket Harry with his arms and rocked his hips, cutting off whatever he was going to call him. Harry's hands flew up to dig into his shoulders, then dragged down his back as he set a pace of deep, hard thrusts, eventually settling one in his hair and the other on his hip.

"Eggsy," he panted every so often into his ear, over the litany of filthy things Eggsy kept murmuring just for the way Harry's fingers would tighten when he said something he liked.

"Think you can come for me like this?" he asked, feeling his own orgasm building quickly "Just my cock and my fingers driving you to the brink, you'll look so gorgeous coming without me touching you at all," he dropped his hand anyway because he was almost afraid of what the sight might do to him and he really liked the idea of getting a hand on Harry's cock, but he kept talking even as he did, giving a few slow strokes "I'm going to make you come like that some time. Do what I offered in the hall, lick you open and then milk you with my fingers until you can't talk, and then I'll fuck you for hours, Harry, until I can watch you come undone from it-"

Harry came with a shout in his hand and Eggsy was gone a second later, shuddering on a final hard thrust, collapsing against Harry's chest when he was spent.

For a long while Eggsy drifted. Harry seemed content to do the same as their breathing slowed and their skin cooled just a bit.

"Shit." Harry managed eventually, sounding like he'd chewed gravel. Eggsy huffed against his chest. Damn right, he thought. Five goddamn years of honeypots didn't make a mediocre lover.

The earth seemed to come up to meet him at that thought, a splash of cold water against his comfortably warm body. He curled a bit closer, which was a feat since he had yet to so much as pull out.

"Eggsy?" Harry asked, letting one hand drift along his back "Are you alright?"

Eggsy sighed and looked up "I love you," he said fiercely, and at Harry's raised eyebrow he continued "I mean it, Harry. 'S not just because you're an A plus fuck, which you are, by the way. I really love you."

Harry sobered, stroking a hand through Eggsy's hair, and while it looked like he composed about a million responses in the long while he took to reply, eventually he settled on:

"I love you too, Eggsy."

Later, after they've cleaned up and Harry was tucked warm and solid at his back and he was almost asleep, could feel the twist of the world slipping from his fingers, he heard Harry whisper "Stay," in his ear.

Absently, honest in the space between sleep and waking, he murmured back "I always try, love."

For the first time, Eggsy smiled when he woke up back in his empty world. One thing about loving a spy was that it was nigh impossible to keep secrets, even if you were a spy yourself. Luckily, he had an entire world hidden away to stash them in.

But first, he had an old man to see.


	4. Chapter 4

Kingsman's holding area was as state of the art as everything else, and nearly inescapable besides. Eggsy qualified it as 'nearly' now because Guy Bennett had managed to pull it off without anyone even noticing.

A long-standing argument in the tech department was that they need cameras in the little cells, but they needed to not have cameras because a huge portion of their prisoners were tech gods or just too crafty to be near wires, and in the end the least technical thing about the place was that they had no cameras trained on most of the prisoners. Otherwise, it was over a hundred feet underground, the cells layered with the double protection of a solid lead shell that moved aside if you wanted a look at the prisoner to reveal a layer of six-inch bullet-proof glass.

Bennett had gotten damn lucky with all this. He wasn't in his cell every morning, Eggsy figured, but no one checked until he was safely back where he always was, hunched and still against the cell wall, for all outward appearances one of their most cooperative prisoners. That was where Eggsy found him when the lead draws off, sitting unkempt against the far wall with a vacant look in his eyes.

Eggsy bid the attendant to leave and again was glad for the lack of cameras. Bennett was classified as extremely low-risk; he was a scientist, but not particularly a genius, dangerous with a pad of paper and access to but not so much with only his mind and a few wires. That, and he was over one-hundred years old. The physical threat to an agent or indeed a relatively healthy child was non-existent. Yet circumstances afforded them the privacy to talk unmonitored.

Knowing this, Eggsy didn't bother with the speaker system and instead opted to walk straight into the cell where Bennett was tucked onto a sparse mattress.

"Guy," Eggsy greeted "I didn't get you in too much trouble with the missus, I hope," Bennett deigned to glance up and glowered at him, which told him all he needed to know on the matter. "What do couples as old as you even do together? He can't make you sleep on the couch."

Bennett was still frowning, but eventually he said "We watch cricket."

For some reason, this made Eggsy laugh, and Guy joined with a chuckle after a few more moments spent sulking. For a while after silence reigned in the little room.

"You want to tell me what the hell is going on?" Eggsy finally asked.

"A dream." Bennett replied. He didn't move other than to speak, still. Eggsy imagined that was what a man waiting to be dreaming looked like.

"But it's real, innit?"

"Real?" now he huffed "As real as this world is awful."

"Then it ain't a dream," Eggsy reasoned "So what is it?"

"What's a dream," said Bennett "but a wish fulfilled in sleep?"

"Very deep," he waited, and eventually Bennett gave in to the urge to monologue. He gave himself two points. Silence always worked on megalomaniacs - couldn't stand to find an empty space and not fill it with their own ego.

"It's another world. Just like ours, except the men we loved never died."

"How do you know Harry died?"

Bennett leveled him with a flat look, which Eggsy didn't think he deserved.

"I knew who you were the moment you walked into my compound, spy boy. He was in the ground, and you the walking dead. It's familiar from my own mirror."

Eggsy had to look away from him, his face, so much older than most would ever be, was like some terrifying void of secret truths. Eventually he found himself asking:

"Who is he?"

Bennett didn't seem to expect this question. Slowly, for what was probably the first time in ages in the prison, he uncurled from his spot on the mattress. Hands like bone-claws dug into his pocket, and Eggsy wondered briefly how he'd smuggled anything in, but then remembered he might have taken it from the other side. Still, the faded picture he withdrew seemed so worn with age that he might have believed it traveled with him from the bronze age. With some reluctance, he held it out.

"Tommy Judd. We went to school together. He died in the Spanish Civil War."

Eggsy didn't dare touch the picture. Something about it made him feel that it would fall to dust in hands any younger than Bennett's own. But he did look, and there, yellow and faded so it looked almost more like a painting, were two smiling young men, one with dark hair and the sort of winning smile and smarmy air that still seemed to cling to Bennett, the other seemed caught in what he assumed was a rare true grin.

"No one could make him laugh but me." Bennett said wistfully. "Not for real. He was - so I thought - straight as an arrow. Only one in the whole school, so naturally I fell in love with him. But it was not to be, and eventually I got used to working around it. Strange how much room there is in the heart. And a damn shame," he seemed to think on this for a bit, tucking the picture back into his prison suit as he did "I'd like to say I got along alright after he died, but I should think I got along as well as you, which was not at all. Defected to Russia - he loved Russia. People do the dumbest things when they pretend not to be grieving. Took me four or five decades to work out how much I wanted to see him again, and even then," he paused again "I never expected so much."

Eggsy could relate. He felt a flash of terror, looking at Bennett, for the glance at the life he might have lived.

"So that dud bomb-"

Bennett scoffed. Kindred spirit or not, near enough to a century of villainy wouldn't be left behind in a few weeks, and the haughty attitude that went with it was seared into his bones, though there was a chance that was all his own originally. Either way, it wouldn't let him stay quiet when someone else talked shit on his plans.

"The bomb wasn't a dud, spy boy. This was what it was meant to do. Of course, you were an unexpected tag-along, but it was a resounding success."

Eggsy thought about this for a few long seconds. "I don't suppose there's a way to just...stay."

"No," Bennett replied, short again and pursing his lips - probably because he'd thought about it even more than Eggsy himself. "It's our price, I'd say, to keep the universal balance sheet in check. I'd pay a thousand times more."

Eggsy considered this for a while, "It _is_ a bit wonderful, innit?" he asked, smiling.

"He lets me _kiss_ him," Bennett said, like some kind of schoolboy.

Eggsy found himself laughing. Alright, so maybe Bennett wasn't so bad after all. He ended up leaving with a smile on his face, at any rate. So the other world was real, or as real as he could have hoped. If he must, he would live with this one too, and come home every other day to Harry Hart waiting for him.

That meant he had a few other stops to make before he went back to bed and back where he belonged.

* * *

The best shop in town was, as expected, not that far from Kingsman's storefront. He waltzed in and was still briefly amazed that he was let into these places now, whereas before he'd have been blocked at the door. He spent about an hour staring at glittering diamonds (too gaudy, would get caught on things when he fought), slate-colored titanium (too dark, though it would match most of his suits, too simple), various well-crafted glittering circles of less precious stones that were none the less gorgeous (and a tad too flashy), before he conceded he would never make up his mind on his own and thought for all of no time before ringing up the one person in either universe that would stand a chance at offering useful advice.

"Merlin! How you doin' old man?" Eggsy bent down over another of the gleaming jewelry cases.

"...Eggsy?" Merlin sounded dubious.

"Oi, did you delete my number, you git?"

"No, no, never mind. You sound...good."

"Yeah, yeah, you sound same as always even though it's what, two a.m. over there?" he checked the row of watches to make sure he was right "How's things with that pretty tech bird? She still kicking your ass at everything?"

Merlin coughed "Maybe. Is there something you want?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it, but it's a bit weird."

"Wonderful." Merlin grumbled "Well, get on with it."

"Did Harry ever take a shine to any jewelry?"

There was a long silence on the other end.

"Said it was weird. Rings specifically, other than the signet."

"...He had a penchant for wood and dark colors. Anything that matched his outfits would do." Merlin said at length. One of the security cameras turned very slowly towards him. Eggsy winked at it.

"Thanks a bunch, Merlin. So how's America treating you?"

"Like nobility." Merlin muttered, but the security camera kept following him as he perused the store's collection of earrings, just for fun. It occurred to him that his money here wasn't tied to his money on the other side, and he eyed some of the expensive dangly ones with more interest. His mum might appreciate something nice. Things could go back and forth with him anyway, which was the whole crux of this plan.

"It's the accent, innit?"

"It's like catnip. I can't even have a pint in peace."

Eggsy whistled "Got 'em linin' up round the block for you, and all you can think to do is complain."

"You try having half Kentucky throw themselves at you and see how you like it." Merlin grumbled "I don't date agents, let alone repressed cowboy agents."

Eggsy laughed, earning a glance from the shop keep.

"Our boy Merlin, only into the nerds and-" he paused, realizing suddenly that this Merlin never married Roxy. He couldn't, because she was dead, which was why no one in the tech department dated agents. Merlin, who'd quit the moment the new Lancelot was sworn in and fucked off to Kentucky to slum it with the yanks and some pretty magician they'd managed to recruit, like he couldn't bear the sight of the Kingsman mansion a second longer.

 _He'd already been in love with Roxy._

"Hey, Merlin," he said eventually "I'm...sorry if I brought up any bad memories."

Merlin was quiet again, then a soft sigh reached his ears "No lad, not bad ones at any rate. I'm glad you're doing better. You should call more often."

Eggsy waved at the camera, which got him another look from the clerk. "Been spying on me?"

Merlin scoffed "I'm a _spy_."

He hung up.

Eggsy grinned.

He wandered around a bit more and made the shopkeeps nervous, then made them extremely happy when he ordered a custom ring with a price tag that might have covered a moderately-sized mortgage and a nice pair of earrings, and left whistling happily, off to see to the one last person he had to visit.

* * *

"It seems a bit weird, asking you for permission to ask you to marry me," Eggsy said into the soft breeze "Still, seemed wrong not to."

Here, the Hart plot is a sobering reminder of how impossibly lucky he really was. He'd never had a chance to fall quite so stupidly in love with this Harry before he was gone. There were no precariously-stacked closets left in his house for him to dig though while Harry tried in vain to keep them from spilling; record music would echo mournfully around the empty rooms no matter how upbeat the tune was. They never got to argue about what to eat, or kiss at the end of the day, and Eggsy couldn't steal his cardigans while he waited for him to come home because there were no more cardigans that smelled like him, and he wouldn't be back before they were gone again if there were.

"Fuck," he muttered, tipping his head back and blinking fast. Harry died years ago, not that morning, he told himself, there was no way he was crying over it some more. Still it _felt_ like he'd died that morning, and every morning since this whole thing had started. Before, he'd grown numb to Harry being gone, but now he lost him every day. He looked back down and touched the edge of the cool, smooth stone. He hated it. He wanted it to be warm like the person it represented, but nothing had ever managed that - not the bright, burning summer sun, and not Eggsy's back when he'd sat against it for hours in the past, clinging to this one connection.

How had he even gotten on this? There was a world where he was going to ask Harry to marry him. This was a happy occasion.

"I don't think I was ever going to come back from losing you," he found himself saying "even though I told myself I had. It turns out there's a big difference between moving forward and moving on. I guess Bennett had something there."

The breeze ruffled his suit, the setting sun cast the dark stone in the sort of stark relief that would have made any photographer stop and take a shot. Harry's name stood out somehow in the strange shadow twilight cast on the backs of stone, knightly even in death. On the impulse of some still-bleeding scar on his heart, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the chill marble beside carved letters.

"I love you Harry. Now and always."

He went home, and remembered before he went to sleep that the very first time he'd drifted back he'd taken Harry's red robe with him, and sure enough he rummaged around and found it, still faintly smelling of Harry. He was a bit surprised Harry hadn't mentioned it yet, but he was glad, because it meant he could go to sleep in it now.

* * *

He woke up in Harry's bed and snuggled down further into the covers for a bit - he liked these mornings. Eventually the sun tracked across the sky to gleam rudely in his face and forced him from the tangle of blankets.

He had no plans, so he had a late shower and wandered aimlessly about the house for awhile, walked J.B., and thought briefly about paying Roxy a visit before his mother's signature bell-ringing technique roused him from his fuzzy, disconnected morning.

"Mum?" he greeted when he opened the door and found her there, dressed nice and sans Daisy.

"Eggsy babe!" she paused in texting to drag him into a hug. Eggsy hugged her back in confusion.

"What are you doing here?"

She drew back and dropped her phone into her bag with a grin. "Exams just let out and I'm here to see my boy!"

"Oh," he said intelligently, then "You got a real sixth sense for gifts, yeah?"

Michelle made the most girlish, high-pitched sound he'd ever heard from her, and he noticed she smelled very strongly of coffee and had cleverly covered her lack of sleep with makeup.

"What'd my darling son get me?"

Eggsy laughed and went to fetch the earrings from the bedroom where he'd left them that morning, having stuffed them in the pocket of the dressing gown, and enjoyed watching his mum's eyes go wide when she opened the little box. Then he was whisked away on an impromptu 'girls' day' that in fact had no girls in it, but he didn't mind. He saw Michelle often enough, but he had rarely got a day with her in either universe. He got his nails buffed to within an inch of their lives, the posh kind of facial, and narrowly escaped getting his hair frosted; and they were having a nice street-bought lunch in the park when his mum casually asked:

"You gonna tell me what you was doin' in a jewelry shop?"

Eggsy stopped chewing his mouthful of chips to blink owlishly at her. "What? I was gettin' you a gift. Exams and all that," he said, wincing when he swallowed a few chips whole to do so.

Michelle picked at her own food innocently "Really? Not a single one of your good-luck texts, but a set of thousand-dollar earrings?"

Eggsy ducked his head. Alright, so he was a git and forgot all about exams. He scuffed his foot on the ground and mumbled his reply.

"'M gonna ask him to marry me."

Michelle lowered the plastic cone that held her food, her expression going serious. "Eggsy, are you sure?"

"'Course I'm sure, mum. You think I been shacking up with him to keep the rent down?"

"I know, Eggsy," she replied, sighing "Listen, you know I ain't been a fan of him and you since the get." Eggsy winced, because actually no, "But it's been long enough that I can see how good he is for you. Turned our lives around and that wasn't even the best thing he did. If he's it for you, love, then get on with it, yeah? Neither of ya is getting any younger." She returned to her food "'specially him."

"Mum!" he admonished, and she shrugged.

"What? 'M just statin' facts."

"Can you not?"

"Alright, alright." For one hopeful moment he thought she was done, but then she continued "But you know, I'll be on rotation for the rest of school, so if you ever need any o' them little blue pills-"

" _Mum_!" he cried, and she cackled at him.

A few minutes later he nudged her foot "Thanks."

"Oh sure, prescriptions can be a pain."

"For your _blessing_ ," he stressed.

"Yeah, yeah," she waved him off "If you think I'll go easy on him you're dead wrong," she hopped up to throw her now empty paper away "Come on, I've got hours more planned!"

* * *

Elsewhere, the early morning sun filtered into Galahad's office and shone on Roxanne Morton's platinum blonde hair.

"Lancelot," Harry greeted simply.

"Merlin hasn't said anything yet," she replied, dropping into an armchair he usually reserved for guests (read: Eggsy).

"He hasn't?" Harry asked airily.

"No," she frowned "it might have something to do with my avoiding him."

"I see."

"Which is your fault, by the way. I'm not sure I can cry convincingly enough to my husband over the death of my best friend who is mysteriously alive, so the least you can do is let me hide in here."

"Of course, if you feel you need to."

"Harry, you don't understand. I haven't had sex in three months, and you're making me avoid my husband."

"Terribly unfortunate situation."

Roxy squinted at him. "What did he do to you?" she asked, and Harry did look up at that, blinking innocently.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean you look-" Roxy grimaced and made jazz hands at him.

Harry continued blinking, then gave a polite cough and set aside the documents he now realized he hadn't been reading.

"I'm...developing a theory, Roxy. It may help you with your act, if you must act."

Roxy seemed to wisely not mind this change of subject, "Oh?"

"...I'm not sure the boy you saw last night is Eggsy."

"Harry, my god, that's serious-"

"He is _Eggsy_ , Lancelot, there's no doubt in my mind about that." Harry cut her off with a hand out to stall her understandable response. "Perhaps I should rephrase, it is rather convoluted. I am beginning to think that he is another Eggsy, as it were."

"That still makes no sense."

"Thus it is in development."

Roxy frowned at him, and he had a moment to wonder at how changed she was for her and Eggsy's friendship - and possibly her association with Merlin and Harry as well, though it was less obvious. She had been tense and tightly controlled at first, a model agent whose missions seemed straight from textbooks - if Kingsman were the type of place to have textbooks. Over time, however, and exposure to the more brash of the agents, she'd acquired a sort of brashness of her own that lead her to be less exemplary and more legendary. And to loose her particular kind of relaxed behavior on them, cool and sharply sarcastic, which Eggsy had always taken delight in.

"What makes you think it is and also isn't him?" she asked eventually.

Harry scavenged for tact, as _he was not such a master of fucking last month_ seemed beyond the scope of proper workplace conversation, "There were things he was...not quite so skilled at-"

Roxy caught on anyway and threw up her hands to stall him "I do _not_ want to know."

"-and he has more scars than you and I combined." Harry transitioned smoothly "Nothing he could have gotten in the week between his death and revival. From what I can gather he scarcely knows what's happening to him himself. So far as I can tell, something is wrong with the Bennett job. You know Bennett?"

Roxy nodded "Yeah, I read what I could stomach of the file. Good riddance."

"Bennett is also still alive, and shacked up in Hampstead with another man born at roughly the start of the Jurassic period. It's as if the blast fractured them into multiple people. I've no way of understanding, in truth."

"Have you tried asking Eggsy?" Roxy asked slowly, as if she fully expected an answer she disapproved of.

"No. Sort of."

"May I ask _why_?"

"He hasn't said anything about it."

"Neither have you?"

"I don't want to know." Harry said with more force than was necessary. He took a deep breath, then removed his glasses so he could rub the bridge of his nose "If...if his time is limited in some way or another...you didn't see his body and I hope you never do. This cannot come free. If he thought I could help I've no doubt he would come to me, but he hasn't and I'm too much a coward to ask."

"Oh, Harry." Roxy sighed "Let me know if there's anything I can do, alright? I keep saying this, but he's my best friend."

Harry spent a while staring aimlessly at the floor, then replaced his glasses and straightened up. "Of course," he returned to his papers "and you're welcome to stay in here as long as you like."

Roxy smiled wanly "Thanks, Harry."

* * *

As Eggsy saw it, this was probably the best possible time to go and have a chat with his dad's grave.

"You think he'd be pissed?" Eggsy asked. Michelle had been surprisingly agreeable about following him to the graveyard that evening, shrugging with a 'I should rub it in his face how good I look' and a smile edged with something so familiar he'd had to look away. His mum was a stronger person than he, he suspected. Sure, he'd survived Harry's loss before, but after a few years and a kid? He'd be gone.

"You got a lot of who you are from your dad, Eggsy. It's why you couldn't take life in the estates."

"That ain't an answer?"

"He'd either be very proud or murder Harry in cold blood," She smiled and produced three beers from her tote bag, at which Eggsy raised his eyebrows.

"Needed 'em, didn't we?"

He conceded her point and took the one she held out for him. She produced a bottle opener next, popping open both of the other two beers before setting one on top of the weathered old stone they stood before and handing the opener off to Eggsy.

"Hey dad," Eggsy said, starting to smile a bit "'m gonna get married. I hope. You might know the bloke, goes by Harry Hart." His mum huffed beside him "Please don't haunt him in a ghostly rage," he added.

Michelle laughed and raised her bottle "He's got my blessing, Lee. I wish you could see how disgusting they are together." She winked at Eggsy, and he let his smile take over his face as they tapped all three bottles together "To a happy engagement."

"I hope." Eggsy added, and drank about half the thing in one go. Fuck, he was going to ask Harry to _marry him_.

"Oh, as if he'd say no. You've got that man wrapped around your little finger."

Eggsy was about to reply when the sound of boots crunching over gravel prompted him to look up, or, to be more accurate, the abrupt halt of them. Usually any meeting of eyes in the old graveyard was the one social situation where no outward acknowledgement of the glance was required - both could look away without so much as a nod and know that no offence was taken. That was what Eggsy usually opted to do. Not so this time.

Merlin's strangely intense gaze was affixed to Eggsy's face. He looked a bit like he did when nothing but him and his hacking skills stood between the world and an untimely apocalypse. But Merlin could be as dramatic a bastard as any of them at times, and barring any immediate threat, Eggsy figured he had time to shoo their audience away before he was either briefed on the mission or chastised for something.

And they did have an audience. Beside Merlin, a calm but confused little man had stopped a few paces after him. Eggsy had seen him around enough to assume he was the graveyard's custodian. That was a little unnerving, he had to admit, but he'd seen Merlin's grieving face enough times and saw that he wasn't wearing it, so he bid himself to be calm.

"Merlin!" He greeted happily, raising his beer in hello. He hadn't actually clapped eyes on Merlin in more than a year, and their calls were infrequent at best. He was secure enough to admit he'd missed him a bit.

This seemed to snap Merlin out of his odd trance. His shoulders made a funny little shrug as they did when he was forced from his mind back into the situation, usually rudely. Eggsy figured it helped that now everyone was looking at him. Rather than say anything in response, however, he turned to the custodian and held a low, quick conversation with the little man, who seemed only more perplexed by whatever he said.

"I remember you," Michelle said eventually, cutting Merlin's private conversation short. Eggsy understood, it was a confusing statement. How the hell Merlin had met his mum, Eggsy had no idea. "The accountant for the tailors' shop, you said. Roxanne's husband, yeah?"

Merlin turned, suddenly the picture of calm. "Merlin, Miss Unwin."

"Oh, Michelle, please." She held up her beer "I'd offer you one, but I'm afraid I figured three was lush enough. Though I doubt Lee would mind."

"No, thank you," Merlin looked like he wanted to say more, but the custodian cut in.

"Are you sure you want to reschedule t-"

The custodian's question was cut off by a sudden burst of bubblegum pop. All of them looked at Michelle as she cursed and dug her phone out of her purse.

"It's my alarm!" She located it and shut the sound off "I have to go, Eggsy, I'm due to pick up Dais."

The custodian gave Merlin, who was once again unwilling to take his eyes off Eggsy, one last questioning look, before turning to Michelle. "I can call you a cab, miss." he said, offering her his arm.

"Oh, would you? That would be great!" She turned to Eggsy, who shrugged one shoulder.

"I'll catch a ride back with Merlin, if it's all the same to you."

"Yeah yeah," she leaned up to kiss his cheek "Don't end up in one of these any time soon, alright?" with a wide gesture to the graves she started off, quickly striking up a conversation with the custodian as they headed towards the road.

Eggsy watched her go, smiling, unaware of the shadow that slunk up to him gradually.

Merlin waited until Michelle was safely out of sight to strike. Once minute Eggsy was standing giddy and content, the next he found himself in a headlock that was not at all softened by the jumper that covered Merlin's arms.

"Who are you?!" Merlin demanded, in the split second before Eggsy's instincts kicked in. In a blink he bent and flipped Merlin to the other side of the row, dancing away before he could be caught again.

"Oi, oi! Merlin, what the fuck, it's me!"

Merlin was glaring at him, lit like fire by the orange light of the setting sun, indignance coloring his features like he couldn't believe that Eggsy'd just had the balls to throw him off. Or possibly the skill. To be fair, Merlin's grip had been more practiced and vice-like than he was expecting, and he was keen to stay outside the man's lunging distance. Which was pretty far. Fuck, Merlin could be intimidating.

"Then tell me how I have your body on ice in the Kingsman morgue!"

Eggsy stilled. "What?"

"Eggsy Unwin was killed in an explosion over a month ago," Merlin pulled himself back to his full height, but Eggsy was too busy trying to swallow his heart back down from his throat to its place in his chest to step away "I'm in this graveyard to bury him, so whoever you are, it isn't Eggsy Unwin."

 _Oh, no_ , Eggsy thought. Another world, Bennett had said. But one with a perfect Eggsy-shaped space just waiting to be filled. Moments over the past month replay in his head, moments that make a fuckton more sense and others that make absolutely none. Harry letting him walk away from what should have been worrying gaps in his memory. That first night, when he'd been so calm, like he'd been waiting for Eggsy to come home.

"Does Harry know?" his voice comes out soft and hollow.

" _Does Harry know_? He's the one who dug you out of Bennett's compound!"

"He didn't say nothin!" Eggsy shouted, finding his voice and powering it with the rising horror in his chest "I walked into his house and he just made me pancakes at fuckin' midnight and didn't say shit about me bein' dead!"

"I'm not so besotted that I'm blind to what is so obviously a fake," Merlin was there, suddenly, grabbing the front of his suit with none of the deadly grace of before. Rather than blind, as he'd said, he was at least disturbed at finding another Eggsy out and about. "Just who are you?!"

"I'm Eggsy fuckin' Unwin! I grew up in the estates with my mum and I had a shitty stepdad named Dean and everyone I fuckin' love is dead!" He shoved Merlin off in a parody of his usual skill, but Merlin fell back just the same. Eggsy barreled on, all the truth and pain spilling out like the stopper had been pulled.

"That scar on Harry's forehead is another inch to the right, and that-" Eggsy pointed sharply to the empty plot two over "is where I go when I want to talk to him, and this," he jerked his finger to the ground between him "is where I go when I can stand to remember what my mum and baby sister looked like when they pulled them out of a car crash on the highway," now he threw his hand off to the west "and out in the country is another one I go to when I get the time to apologize to Rox for not bein' fast enough to dig her out before she ran out of air waitin' for a rescue that wasn't fuckin' comin'!"

"Roxanne-" Merlin was pale, suddenly, her death finally getting to him, but Eggsy plowed on.

"I'm Eggsy fuckin' Unwin, Gov, who you fucked off and left alone in London, and until I woke up in a fuckin' puddle in Scotland in this little universe that seemed like it was built just for me, I was waitin' around for the day when it was my turn."

He took a shaky breath and looked into Merlin's narrowed eyes "Merlin, I can't lose this," he swallowed hard as the chill in his blood continued to spread. "I'll go if Harry asks, but nobody else."

For a long, terrible while there was nothing but silence. Eggsy crumpled under it, leaning on Lee's headstone and putting his head in his hands.

"We need to get to the bottom of this," Merlin said at length, and Eggsy laughed humorously.

"Nah guv, it's Bennett. 'Es as lonely as I am, is all. Built a bomb that blew us both clean into this place. Well, not clean, but near enough for us."

"The suit," Merlin muttered to himself.

Eggsy lifted his head and found Merlin frowning the way he did when given a problem to work out "What suit?"

"Harry brought a suit in, asked us to run some tests on it. We didn't find anything conclusive, but I asked the department to keep digging a bit longer after Harry told us not to waste resources. I assume it was yours? Green, muddy, smelled like the tube?"

"Yeah, 's what I was wearing the first time I came in."

Merlin nodded "I called a physicist I know at Oxford. To simplify, he and twenty others around the world found more and are baffled."

"'M not surprised."

"That's not all. The effect is inconsistent."

"So?"

"So, whatever it is that brings you here - it's breaking down in the suit. Eggsy, it might break down in you as well."

Well, that was ominous. This talk was shaping up to be awful. Still, there was one light in Merlin's words, and he lit upon it rather than what science only Bennett would be able to unravel - mostly because he made it.

"So you believe me, then."

Merlin scowled "I haven't decided. But you're here, and if I could get you to the lab I might be convinced."

"If? You'd let me go? Even though you're half convinced I'm some clone infiltrator? You're losing your touch, gov."

"Eggsy," Merlin put skeptical stress on the word "I was there with Harry and the retrieval team. There are two ways Kingsman agents die - unexpectedly, as in your case, and intentionally. So, to answer your question, I'll let you go because if I don't Harry Hart will be killed on his next mission."

Another mystery solved itself in Eggsy's head. Harry, home at five o'clock sharp every day.

"You've grounded him," he said aloud.

Merlin nodded "As is policy when emotional distress is suspected. But I can't keep him from the field forever," sharp eyes turned on him then "You, I've mourned. Losing you again won't gut me. Harry stands a chance at being saved if I use you right."

Harry. What the fuck was he doing, Eggsy wondered, letting some doppelganger into his house without so much as a _tell me, how do you keep looking so life-like?_ over dinner.

"I better get home, then. Harry will be worried already. I'll be gone until late morning, but if you like I can come in then."

"Gone?" Merlin raised his eyebrows "Where?"

"Back where I come from. Listen, I really should go."

He pushed himself to his feet, driven by the sudden desire to collapse into Harry's arms, but slowed by the possibility that once Harry knew that Eggsy was not _his_ Eggsy - a fraud and a thief in his place - he might not be welcomed there.

"Would I find anything of use if I brought down the full force of Kingsman R and D on you?" Merlin asked, holding up a staying hand.

"Probably not," Eggsy admitted "I'll be Eggsy Unwin down to my bones, and if you spent a good few years on it you might figure out what the hell Bennett did, but that's it."

"Then don't bother coming in. I'll use other channels."

"Don't bother Bennett. Not in front of Tommy, at any rate, you'll never get a word out of him. When I get back to London I'll see what I can find out."

Merlin shot a glance at the tall buildings rising in the near distance, London's skyline glinting in the sun.

"The other one. I'll wake up in Denmark in a few hours, somebody's got it in their head that they can crash the whole global economy and rebuild the world in their image. Give me a day or two," He started off, headed for a nearby tube station.

"Kay is on that mission," he heard Merlin mutter.

"Tell him it's the red switch he wants to hit. Almost had to fight a lion. Eccentric fucker."

* * *

Merlin strode through the halls of Kingsman not long after he'd watched Eggsy Unwin - or _someone_ \- wander off into London like he wasn't sitting dead three floors down in a cold metal refrigerator, barely recognizable. If he'd seen Harry he might have brained him with his clipboard. _Heartbroken old fool_ , he thought, not for the first time. Eggsy's words echoed in his ears again, _he didn't say nothin'!_

Of course he didn't. And he'd go on saying nothing to anyone, Merlin expected, for as long as he possibly could. If Eggsy was a fake, he was a _damn_ good one. A good part of Merlin's hope that Eggsy's story was true came from a healthy fear of whoever might have the ability to clone a Kingsman so convincingly. But he _was_ flawed - in a terrible way that only made him seem more authentic. And that was what he guessed had Harry so savagely defending and hiding him.

Not for the first time he wished he hadn't caved and let Harry come to Scotland. Maybe if Eggsy's death hadn't been given such tangible reality so quickly, Harry might not have taken on that goddamn look. Maybe if he hadn't been the one to find the body, Merlin wouldn't have stood over him and felt the shock of two losses, one just confirmed and the other now inevitable.

But it was that tragedy-built instinct that had drawn him up short in the graveyard. _'I'll go if Harry asks_ ,' Eggsy had said, with _that look_ in his eyes. If Harry asked, he'd go alright, and there'd be no retrieving him after.

No one could fake that level of devastation.

Every Merlin learned that look the hard way once. His own had been the Lancelot James had replaced. He'd learned the lesson well the first time. Then, both Lee and James had been the unexpected kind of death, the kind that came with the biggest of foes. Merlin had never lost another agent to the single, bright kernel that kindled in them after terrible things, the one that would stay their gun arm and make them hesitate on the threshold of a crashing plane, the one that made death something to be considered rather than fought.

Seventeen years his record had been spotless. Then, out of his own control, Lancelot had been lost. His entire career could be marked by Lancelots, it seemed, if not his life. He considered this as he scoured the mansion for the latest in the prestigious line, arguably the best of the bunch. Eventually he found her napping in the chair in Harry's office, tucked under a blanket, the room lit by nothing but the fading light of day from the windows.

That was a strange place to find her, he acknowledged as he roused her. Roxanne blinked at him blearily, frowned, and then frowned much harder as she came around.

"Hey Merlin."

Merlin only raised his eyebrow when the anxiety switched off and he was treated to the best of her seductive Agent Lancelot smiles.

"Roxanne," he replied "a word."

This being the second time in two days the young Lancelot had been asked such with quiet earnesty, she barely kept from groaning. She uncurled from the chair with a stretch and looped her arms around his neck on their way back, smiling as she leaned close.

"Must we talk?"

Merlin squinted at her, "You know."

All the agents had a healthy fear of Merlin's detective skills, or as Eggsy called them, freaky mind-reading powers. Roxanne was no exception, and he caught the moment when the anxiety flashed in her eyes again before she could hide it behind innocent ignorance.

"Know what?"

"I ran into him in the graveyard."

All pretense dropped. She fell back enough to look at him, frowning again. "I found out by accident," she said quietly "Harry begged me not to tell you. I didn't want to keep it from you, but he's so-"

"I know," Merlin interrupted. To an agent who'd never seen the look before it would be terrifying for unknown reasons.

"Did he really die?"

"He _is_ dead, Roxy. He told me some things, but it all comes down to this: whether he's Eggsy or not, the one we knew did die in Scotland."

Roxy bit her lip, her eyes beginning to shine, and ducked her head. Merlin pulled her close.

"What can we do?"

He drew a breath and let it out. Eggsy seemed convinced that whatever Bennett had done wouldn't be recreated easily, let alone understood.

"I don't know."

* * *

Eggsy closed the door behind him as softly as he could. It was dark out already, the interior of the house all aglow the way it never was in the other world. He'd never come home later than Harry, not since that first night, when it had been too late for all the lights to be on, and it stopped him dead in the hall. Like water slipping through his fingers, this could all be gone. He didn't have time to dwell as Harry, attuned to his house, came around the corner a second later.

"There you are," Harry strode over and kissed him firmly "you're late."

And there it was, fitting in like the missing puzzle piece to the mystery - the nervous energy that surrounded Harry, the way he never asked questions when he damn well should have.

His Eggsy was _dead_.

And Eggsy, himself, was, what? Stealing, keeping him from letting go. An ugly selfishness reared up in his chest. Why couldn't he steal this world, he wondered. Why couldn't he let this Harry have him, and take him for his own, when the rightful one was long gone?

Harry caught his hand and tore him from his thoughts. He blinked and found Harry giving his nails an inquiring look.

"Mum's done with exams," he said faintly "she insisted."

Harry smiled, and it just about shattered Eggsy's heart. He had a right to know. "Ah, then I suppose it's a wonder you haven't got matching eyeshadow. And a shame."

That startled a laugh from him "You kinky fuck."

"Come now, Eggsy, eyeshadow is hardly kinky." Harry stepped closer, pressing him between the door and his chest "Now, fishnet stockings," he began, and Eggsy laughed again and found himself being kissed. The house be damned, this was coming home.

Tomorrow, Eggsy promised himself. He'd talk to him about it tomorrow.

* * *

Tomorrow came slower for him than it did for everyone else, his existence broken up by a stakeout in Copenhagen, but it was still too soon. He woke in an empty bed and fear seized him at the thought that soon, when Harry found out that he wasn't the man who died a month ago, the bed he woke up in in both worlds would be made up and untouched on the other side. Where the house with only his name on the deed feels wide and hollow, that day this one pressed in as though the very walls were watching him in accusation. He was chased out by it.

Aimlessly he wandered the streets of London, dogged by the void of loneliness he knew and the very real possibility that he might know it twice over. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was an invader in the world, somehow out of place no matter what street he was on and in spite of the fact that he'd walked here for weeks without noticing it.

And that was how he found Tommy Judd, muttering reproachfully at a car that Eggsy suspected was as old as the man himself - if they made cars back then. While shimmering black and clearly redone a few dozen times, it seemed it hadn't been enough to keep it from breaking down, if Tommy's hunched and frustrated form over the engine was anything to go by.

"Got a problem, gov?" He found himself asking.

Tommy looked up, his aged face pinched into an expression of intense frustration and decorated with a smear of engine grease, and only frowned harder upon recognizing Eggsy.

"Oh, if it isn't the _tailor,_ " Tommy's tone said exactly how much didn't buy that cover.

Involuntarily, Eggsy felt himself start to smile. "You sound like you got bit by one, but that's me. Eggsy Unwin. And you're Tommy Judd yeah? Bennett's man."

Tommy scoffed "I am my own man, and I'd thank you to remember it."

"Alright, alright," Eggsy raised his palms in surrender "didn't mean nothin' by it, gov. You want a hand?"

"Not at the price you're offering."

Eggsy took Tommy in again, and saw something a little different this time. Here was a man who'd stuck by another Bennett, one who'd given him cause to find passing strangers on the street suspect and occasion to learn to spot an agent with a few words and a squint. Eggsy knew others like Tommy, he supposed - women, mostly, the wives of cutthroats and the dealers who rose fast, all made of tougher and more loyal stuff than him, usually.

"Tommy, you and Bennett haven't got a thing I can't get easier myself. Today I'm just a man out for a walk to clear his head who could use a bit of work to keep his mind off his life. Now, do you want a hand or not?"

Tommy glowered at him, now both mildly affronted and mildly impressed, and deliberated only a moment before standing aside and sweeping his hand at the engine. "Be my guest."

Eggsy ended up less helping and more being a strong pair of nimble hands, since it seemed Tommy knew the engine as well as he knew the color of the sky. Eventually the engine flared to life and he found himself bamboozled into driving Tommy back home while the old man grumbled about the aches and pains of too much activity on old bones. Eggsy hardly minded. A little unfamiliar company was welcome to keep his mind off things, and whatever it was about Tommy that compelled Eggsy to like him only seemed to grow stronger as they went.

The house they eventually pulled up in front of was nice, very suburban, with a small, plush lawn and unkempt roses climbing above the door. It suited Tommy. Eggsy couldn't help but think it was a strange place for the fortress-dwelling mastermind that was Guy Bennett to be living.

Tommy frowned at him when he hovered too long by the car, lost in thought though he'd meant to be on his way.

"Well? Would you like to come in for tea or stay outside and gape?"

Eggsy blinked, and found himself smiling. If he didn't know better, he'd think Tommy had taken a shine to him, too. Once inside, Eggsy was directed to sit as Tommy tottered about making the tea.

Their kitchen was bright and decorated with at least four decades worth of collecting. Gaudy old souvenirs, mismatched silverware, and the odd fifties style of wallpaper all gave the place the air of a home much lived in.

"How long have you two lived here?" he asked.

"Together? Just over a month. Off and on before that, when he could tear himself away from his work."

"You serious?" Eggsy pictured Guy, sitting listless in his cell, waiting for sleep, at the end of thirty years research into how to see this little old man again and giddy at the thought of kissing him "What the fuck was he doin', leavin' you alone?"

A perfect Eggsy-shaped hole, he thought just as he finished speaking, and reeled. There had to be another perfect match, hadn't there? One for Bennett to fill in. What had Bennett done with his duplicate in this universe?

Tommy was too busy pouring the tea to notice his dazed look. And perhaps too lost in his own thoughts. He set a cup in front of Eggsy and sat with his own, his frown softened and considering.

"He's been different lately. Since about when you started coming around. If he wasn't so old I'd probably be off my head with jealousy."

Eggsy laughed "Nothin' to your taste, gov, but I seen the pictures and he wasn't really my type back when neither. Be more likely to be using him to steal you away." Eggsy winked, and Tommy gave him a long-suffering look "But seriously, Guy did me a favor. Kinda an understatement. Saved my life is more like it, even if it was an accident. I'm really fuckin' grateful."

Tommy set down his tea, some shadow crossing his features "Eggsy, I've seen enough like you to know you're not a tailor. I won't ask how you know each other, but he said he's quit and I can't take it if he's lying again-"

"He has quit, gov, swear down. He loves you more than you can imagine and nothin' but nothin's going to tear him away from you after all this time."

Tommy dropped his eyes to his tea, suddenly looking his age.

"Then where does he go every morning?"

Eggsy blanched. It might be something Harry can accept that his young and fit lover isn't in bed at six in the morning, but Bennet at one-hundred and five shouldn't be evaporating to go for a run.

"Tommy, you're going to have to just trust me on this," he said eventually "because there's no way you'll believe the long version. Getting out had a price, and it don't involve no one but him. He's not building or informing or probably even moving around much most days. And I can tell you from experience that all he does is kill time until he can get his arse home."

"Does it have something to do with the quantum mechanics I keep finding scribbled on napkins after I leave him to himself?"

Eggsy huffed, but filed the information away - Bennett was still working on something, and if he had to guess, it was a way to force more time out of this situation.

"Yeah."

"He never liked physics before. Couldn't so much as integrate."

There was another question there, fragile but less worried, but the door slamming distracted them both. Tommy looked up, and Eggsy could only hope he'd get to be one hundred and five and still be that smitten with Harry. Bennett was whistling happily until he came into the kitchen and spotted Eggsy at the table.

"'Ey gov," Eggsy greeted, enjoying his agitated frown far too much.

"Tommy?" Bennett asked.

"Lenin's starter went. Eggsy happened to be passing by and drafted himself into fixing it for me." Tommy climbed to his feet and crossed the kitchen, eventually drawing Bennett's sharp gaze away by pressing a kiss to his cheek. Bennett promptly forgot about Eggsy in favor of giving Tommy the most besotted look Eggsy had ever seen - at least since the last time he'd run into them.

"I'll get out of your hair," Eggsy offered, standing. Bennett looked downright torn between frowning at him and actively trying to drown himself in Tommy's eyes.

"Are you sure? We're just about to sit down for lunch."

Bennett's face told Eggsy exactly how much he was not invited to said lunch, which almost made him say yes.

"That's real nice of you gov, but I should head home. Maybe next time, yeah?" He picked up his rainmaker from where he'd set it by the door, then, on a whim, drew a pen and a crumpled receipt out of his pocket, scrawling his number down and handing it over "Tommy, give us a ring next time that old junker cuts out, yeah? Can't have a pretty thing like you out on your own," he winked, and Guy looked so affronted behind Tommy that Eggsy almost laughed.

"That car is a masterpiece of craftsmanship," Tommy began, also affronted but less so, but cut off when Guy's arm landed possessively on his waist with a look on his face that said he'd forgotten what he was about to rant over in his bewilderment.

"It was wonderful of you to come by, Unwin, but isn't someone waiting on you?" Guy said, all of his seventy-odd decades of espionage and assassination coloring his voice and turning the polite inquiry into something just shy of a death threat.

Tommy was still looking between Guy and the offending hand, so Eggsy allowed himself to grin slyly at Guy. "'Course. 'Till next time, then."

"The _nerve_ of that boy-" he heard Guy grouch as he shut the door, undercut when Tommy got his voice back and asked somewhat shrilly "What the ever-loving fuck, Bennett?"

He didn't tell Harry that night either. Something about seeing Tommy that day kept him quiet. He was rewarded for this by Harry pinning him to the bed and demonstrating exactly how easily he could ruin Eggsy's stamina if he felt the need, twice.

* * *

Eggsy finally made it back to London in the darker timeline the next day, and wandered down to the prison, more for someone to talk to than any duty to Merlin. Bennett was, as expected, tucked against the wall staring dreamily into space. Waiting. Eggsy moseyed in and joined him.

"I'm dead there, Bennett," he said eventually, when neither of them acknowledged the other for a long while.

"As am I, though I can only assume it was much more deserved." Bennett replied.

"What are you on about?"

"Tommy," he sighed "Every time I do anything sweet, he looks at me like he's never seen me before. Suffice to say that for the last few decades, my counterpart has done nothing but squander the gifts the universe gave him. I think they, that is, Tommy and your Harry and your friends, needed us as much as we needed them."

Eggsy entertained that idea for a spell, that he was less an invader and more a bandage, something to plug up a wound. He didn't have the energy for deep thoughts just then, though, and let it lie.

"Are you two married yet?" Eggsy asked.

"Oh, no. Tommy is insufferable about those things."

Eggsy felt a smile tug at his lips "What, marriage licenses?"

" _Politics_. Drives everyone who'll listen mad. Says the marriage act is just to keep people from noticing what else the PM is doing, not to mention about eighty years late."

"Yeah, alright. You could ask him anyway. If nothin' else, he'll be happy to have something to rant about."

Bennett smiled too.

* * *

Eggsy sat in Harry's office for hours the next day, mulling over the landslide of things he'd gained to mull over. Tommy, Bennett, Merlin, and Harry all had a part. Tommy, befuddled that the man he'd spent his life tied to suddenly loved him beyond reason. Bennett himself, much faster than Eggsy in reaching the point he was at now, bestowing his conclusion: they were needed, not parasites. Merlin letting him go. Harry never asking, only accepting, somewhat desperately, Eggsy's return.

In the end, it was what Merlin had said in the graveyard that brought him to a decision. After a month of drinking in the joy of a world brimming with the things he'd lost, he could look back and see what Bennett saw in him, and what Merlin saw in Harry. They both had been at the ends of their respective ropes. If Harry was willing to let it go, then Eggsy saw no reason to shatter them both. He feared it was a selfish decision, his own desperate grip on the brighter timeline justified by any means necessary, but the decision was made.

A thief he would be, he decided, for as long as Harry would have him.

And so, another two months passed.


	5. Chapter 5

"Merlin, I want you to do me a favor." Harry said slowly into the phone "It's going to be very difficult for you. I want you to come to my house, and I want you to act as if everything is completely normal for one night. After that, I swear to you that I'll explain. But you _must_ wait until morning. Is that understood?"

Merlin was quiet on the other end of the line, and Harry could _hear_ him narrowing his eyes.

"Family reunion difficult, or Thailand '89 difficult?"

Harry managed to both flinch and smirk at the mention - that particular mission had included, not exclusively: roughly ten miles of leather, molten gold fountains, a donkey in a fetching dress, and far too much glow in the dark paint. It cheered him, though he expected Merlin would be furious with him after this.

"Move down the scale just a bit."

"Just a _bit_?" Merlin sighed "Alright. But I will hold you to that explanation."

"Wonderful. Be here at five o'clock sharp, bring Roxy," He hung up before Merlin could frown at him through the phone.

It was early in the day still, but Harry had come home in order to get things ready. The signs that Eggsy had returned were there - the wrong nightclothes in the hamper, a few extra dishes in the sink, and so on, but it was Tuesday, so he wasn't home.

Eggsy wasn't home because somehow there was a next time with Tommy and Bennett. And a time after that, and a time after that, until it became a regular Tuesday afternoon tradition that Eggsy would come over to the Bennett-and-Judd household for brunch, and flirt shamelessly with Tommy, and eventually he was even on a first-name basis with _Guy_.

That day was no exception, and while Harry didn't know where Eggsy was, he intended to take full advantage of the convenient distraction.

Eggsy, meanwhile, had once again been roped into being a free handy-man.

"You bring this on yourself, you know," Guy said, watching him apply the final coat of paint to their porch railing. A porch that Eggsy himself had built. "If you keep showing up, he'll keep finding things for you to do."

Eggsy set the paintbrush down and gave the railing a once-over for any spots he might have missed. "A gentleman helps where he can." Eggsy replied airily, then smirked "Besides, Tommy would be heartbroken if I stopped coming. I'm well on my way to stealing him away from you."

That earned him a glower, and as if on cue Tommy puttered out with a pitcher of lemonade.

"Guy stop glaring at Eggsy, he's been nice enough to build us a - Eggsy what on earth have you done to yourself?"

Eggsy blinked, then glanced down. Oh yeah, he thought. He knew better than to wear a suit when he came over now, but today it was hot and the sun was out, so he'd opted to forgo a shirt altogether. Guy hadn't even blinked at the roadmap of scars on Eggsy's skin, but they would probably be jarring to a civilian.

He shrugged "saved the world a few times."

He'd meant it to be the sort of truth that any sane person would laugh off as a good joke, but Tommy probably couldn't still be with Guy and be considered entirely sane. He stared at Eggsy for a good minute, blinking, before making an aborted move to give Guy the same treatment. Then, suddenly, he snapped out of it with a frustrated sigh and shoved a frigid glass of lemonade into Eggsy's chest. Eggsy yelped and grabbed the offending glass to yank it away.

"Well, next time consider _dodging_. Clearly you could stand to learn how."

Eggsy had to concede his point, since a man born in the early nineteen hundreds had just gotten the jump on him. Still, he was grinning as Tommy handed off another glass to Guy, scolding him for being outside in the sun for too long.

"He's just getting a good look at the competition," Eggsy called, enjoying Guy's predictable glare and Tommy's signature eyeroll.

"What would Harry even do if you succeeded in wooing me?" Tommy asked, settling next to Guy who took his hand possessively.

Eggsy scratched his chin "Well, I doubt he could resist you either. We'll have a tri-generational polyamorous relationship. It'll be grand."

"Tri-generational?" Tommy raised his eyebrows.

"Harry's in his fifties." Guy supplied.

"You've a type, then, Eggsy?"

Eggsy winked "I have two types, demanding girls and posh boys. Usually one of those categories has a much higher chance of being decent people," he smirked "So I get really interested when I find the rare decent posh bloke."

Tommy, who had apparently hoped to get the upper hand for once, sighed in defeat.

"Drink your lemonade," he said, and took his own advice.

Eggsy obeyed, then cleaned up the paint cans and donned his old t-shirt again.

"Deck's all finished. You got guys comin' to fix the furnace, yeah? 'S a bit outside my skill set."

"Yes, they'll be here Monday," Tommy replied "Thank you for your help, Eggsy. I've meant to have this done for years."

"Not a problem, gov. It's about time I head back. See you next Tuesday?"

"If we must," Guy drawled, but he was smiling a bit. Tommy jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow anyway.

"You're always welcome here, Eggsy," Tommy said with much more warmth. Eggsy waved and headed off down the road. He missed it when Tommy leaned into Guy's side and asked "Guy, who is he?"

Guy huffed, but had already melted against him "He comes over to an elderly couple's house once a week to do housework for them. You still thought he was one of the bad guys?"

They watched him go, and eventually, as he faded from view, Guy continued "Tommy, I wanted to ask you something…"

* * *

Eggsy was fucking glad he'd left his gun back in the first universe this time, because the instant he opened the door to his house he heard a loud noise and got a face full of confetti. Fuck, he thought, blinking rapidly and trying to calm his racing heartbeat, maybe Emma was onto something with the PTSD thing.

"Surprise!" Roxy crowed, dragging him inside "Happy birthday, Eggsy!"

Eggsy kept blinking in confusion. It was his birthday. He'd forgotten his own birthday. Shit, he was a sad fucker, wasn't he?

"Are you alright?" Roxy asked, jabbing him in the side.

"Yeah..." he muttered "just spent all day thinkin' no one remembered, is all. Was heartbroken. You'd better make this up to me."

Roxy rolled her eyes "You haven't been home, you git. How would you know if we'd forgotten?"

"My Facebook feed was empty."

"Cry me a river. Come on, Merlin made scones."

"Merlin?" Eggsy tensed, but the next second he was dragged into the living room. Merlin was there of course, with a look on his face that promised all bets were hereby off, but so were his mum and Daisy, and Jamal and Ryan were bickering in the kitchen, and Harry was close to where they'd entered, waiting for him with a smile.

"Welcome home, Darling." Harry greeted as he usually did, snatching him out of Roxy's grip to kiss the corner of his mouth "Happy birthday."

Fuck, he thought, and found himself grinning. He really loved this life. He caught the back of Harry's neck with one hand and drew him down into another, sweeter kiss.

"Thanks love," he said when he pulled back, setting their foreheads together briefly, knocking into Harry's glasses as he did.

Harry's gaze was warm and adoring. Eggsy could never get enough of it. After a few seconds it flicked to his clothes curiously.

"What have you been up to?"

"Painting a deck," he chuckled when Harry's brow furrowed, but their conversation was interrupted before he could ask anything further.

"You two are disgusting," Roxy declared, though she marched over to Merlin and tucked herself into his side as though it was all one long coincidence, and he just happened to be exactly where she wanted to sit on the sofa. Another coincidence followed when Merlin's arm fell from the back of the couch to her shoulders. Posh wankers, Eggsy thought. Merlin caught him looking and raised one eyebrow in a way that Eggsy might describe as threatening.

"Eggsy," Merlin greeted calmly.

"Hey Merlin," he said boldly, and Harry's arm tightened briefly around his waist. "I heard you made me scones."

He and Merlin stared each other down another few seconds, Harry watching them quizzically, before Daisy had had enough of all this. She vaulted up from her spot on the floor and flung her arms around his waist in greeting.

"Eggsy!" she cried happily "Happy birthday!"

Eggsy laughed and bent to hug her back. He could tell she was already wired from the energy of the room and the promise of cake.

"Hello Dais."

"Oi! Here's the old man," Jamal leaned on the door jamb to the kitchen, grinning.

"Shouldn't you be in Ireland?" Eggsy threw back.

"You gonna ask us that every year?" Ryan called from behind him "You know us and the gov' have an arrangement. Can we eat all this food now or what?"

'The Gov,' Eggsy assumed, pressed another smiling kiss to his temple before striding off for the kitchen.

And just like that, Eggsy was home.

There were enough snacks brought out to feed about double the houses' occupants, and Merlin – he was sure it was Merlin, which raised some questions in his mind about every reflective surface he'd ever encountered in relation to Kingsman - put on My Fair Lady. It was the tamest birthday he'd ever had. His thirtieth had been spent in the Himalayas with Agent Kay, who'd had the audacity to be delirious with fever; his twenty-ninth at a rooftop party in Dubai, and so on back until before Kingsman, when he either passed them sullen or blackout drunk. After three hours of wholesome musical, watching in wonder as Roxanne and Harry and even Merlin chatted amiably with Jamal, Ryan and his mum - his two worlds colliding - he had to say it was the best, too.

"I'd say it's about time for Dinner," Harry said, levering himself up from his chair. He turned to Eggsy, who'd perched on the armrest beside him when it became apparent that it would be the only available spot nearby. He was thankful that the other him had set up a clingy precedent, which he must have, seeing as no one had questioned his choice of seats. "Why don't you go get cleaned up while we set the places?"

Eggsy glanced down at himself - he'd forgotten he was still in his paint-stained jeans and the oldest t-shirt in his closet.

"Yeah bruv, seriously, you stink," Ryan tacked on.

Eggsy rolled his eyes and made a point to fling the shirt at Ryan when he went for the stairs. He intended to take no time at all getting changed, but he gets stuck when he opens the door to his and Harry's bedroom.

And it was stupid. It was so stupid, but Harry'd apparently decided to clean for once in his life and the sight of the clear bedside table was a lance of ice in Eggsy's heart, because it was too much like the one he'd see in the morning. The ice only spread, stealing away the pleasant warmth that had seeped into his bones over the last few hours. He could still hear everyone down stairs, talking and laughing, nothing like the bunch of phantoms they in fact should be. While the room was clean, it was lived-in clean; Harry's things were somewhat organized but still scattered about and taking up space. Hell, the room smelled like him. But he couldn't deny the fact that, for him, this would all be gone in a few hours. He'd wake up cold, tucked to his of the bed side with the other untouched and made up.

He sat down heavily on it then, suddenly unable to hold himself. Ungrateful as it made him feel, for the first time he let himself hate his wretched situation, and that seemed to be the key to the lockbox he'd successfully cemented shut years ago that kept him from feeling ruined by the grief he carried around in his heart.

He could still hear that fucking gunshot ring in his ears sometimes, the one that stole Harry away and set the stage for his life. The tragedy of Eggsy Unwin. He brought his hands up and pressed them to his burning eyes. It was agony to spend twenty-four of every forty-eight hours knowing Harry was _nowhere_.

But it wasn't just him that was righting the sinking ship that was Eggsy's life. Daisy gave him hope for the future, his little baby sister who he got to watch grow and who saw the world's beauty the way Eggsy hadn't since he was six himself. His mum kept him grounded, showed him that he could come back from where he'd been as she did. Jamal and Ryan reminded him of who he was and who he wanted to be. Roxy kept him joking, kept him grinning, and kept him on his toes. Merlin made him careful so he could keep it all together. Tommy and Guy factored in even - they were the dream, he supposed, a goal so far in the future that he could reach forever.

He realized he'd taken too long to pull himself together when he heard the door click open.

"Fuck." Eggsy muttered even as Harry's footsteps paused, wiping at his eyes as surreptitiously as he could. It was no use.

"Darling? What's wrong?"

"Nothin' Harry. Everything's perfect." Eggsy glanced up and tried to force a smile. He had a feeling he failed, which was too bad because it wasn't a lie. Everything _was_ perfect just then. Harry hovered, worry etched into his features, before closing the door and settling beside Eggsy on the bed.

"Is it?" he asked, innocuous, and placed a careful hand on Eggsy's damp cheek.

"'M sorry, I'm bein' stupid," he sighed.

"I've never known that to be the case with you," Harry leaned close, and Eggsy drank in the sight of him. He'd aged in the last five years, same as Eggsy, there were more lines on his face, made him look all distinguished. The greying at his temples had spread in an unruly fashion to salt the rest of his rich brown hair. But his eyes were sharp, unchanged from the first day they'd met, and warm, concerned, and fuck, Eggsy loved him.

He'd promised himself he'd tell Harry everything, but the words gummed up in his throat. It was all right there, just out of his reach, waiting to be said, but he couldn't get the whole story out, not now.

In place of the whole awful tale he dropped his elbows onto his knees and said quietly, like a confession "I don't want to go to sleep."

And that was the heart of it, wasn't it? He wanted this to be his life. He was sick of being torn between both worlds, sick of waking up every morning and being reminded what it felt like to have nothing. It was enough at first, having anything at all. Now, with the distant voices of everyone he cared about drifting up from downstairs, the thought of going back filled him with dread.

Harry's thumb glided across his cheekbone, drawing him from his thoughts. It was so light a touch that Eggsy glanced up and when he did he found himself caught by the strange look in Harry's eyes.

"...where do you go?" he asked so quietly that Eggsy barely heard him.

Eggsy's eyes went wide. For a terrible second he was in a half-forgotten memory of the moment before the worlds collided and he slipped between them, a voice in his ear whispering 'stay,' and another followed of Tommy sitting in his kitchen looking lost into his tea.

 _He knew._

Harry knew damn well that something was wrong, and he hadn't called Eggsy out on it either. An impossible hope sparked in his chest - maybe, just maybe, Harry didn't want to lose him either. Then Harry was talking again, fast, the tension that suddenly sang in the air driving him to explain. "You're always gone in the morning, and I never wake up when you leave."

Harry looked so worried that it broke Eggsy's heart all over again.

 _Hell_ , he thought, _I go back to hell_.

"I'm not him."

It slipped out unbidden, his voice cracking on the last syllable. It wasn't an answer to Harry's question, it wasn't even close to how he'd meant to say it, but once he did he knew it was true. He was about to say more, start apologizing, but then Harry was gathering him close and shushing him gently.

"Har-"

"I know," he whispered, cutting him off soundly.

Eggsy's eyes burned anew. He raised his hands to hang on to Harry and hoped he'd never have to let go. Beneath the miserable feeling in his chest at the thought of going back, and even of staying, though it was less, in Harry's arms as an imposter, a hope bloomed in his chest. If Harry knew - really knew, that he wasn't the Eggsy who was gone, and hadn't thrown him out, then maybe, just maybe, he could stay, and they could find a future together.

"I'll tell you everything, I swear, just - not today, Harry. Please," he pressed the words into Harry's throat, a plea and a promise at once.

Harry nodded slightly, then cupped Eggsy's chin in one warm palm to tilt his face up for a kiss. There was a fear in Eggsy's heart still, dull and throbbing and ever-present, brought to the forefront of his mind now, that drove him to fit closer, to curl his fingers into Harry's shirt with needy abandon. Harry read him like an open book.

Keeping close, Harry pushed him back onto the mattress, one arm still under him while his other hand trailed down his chest.

"Is this alright?" He wasn't asking about what they were doing, Eggsy could tell by the quiet weight of his words – he was asking about everything, about them being together.

" _Yes_ , Harry," he dragged Harry down again to seize his lips "'S long as you don't mind."

Rather than respond with words, Harry kissed his forehead. When he looked at Eggsy again all the teetering fear that had been in his eyes was gone, tucked away again and replaced with the sort of bland consideration Eggsy had learned to associate with mischief.

"We'll have to be quick."

Eggsy made a point to grind against Harry's thigh where it was pressed between his legs "You're always takin' shots at my stamina."

Harry huffed. He pushed himself up just enough to shrug off his shirt and Eggsy quickly undid his jeans before he caught Harry's raised eyebrow at him. He followed Harry's gaze to a smear of paint on his ribs.

"What? It was hot as fuck today."

Harry leaned back down so their bare skin touched and Eggsy sighed at the contact. He wanted more though, and Harry seemed willing to provide. His hands came to Eggsy's hips and took hold of the waistband of his trousers and pants, intentions clear.

"Should I be jealous?" he mused.

Eggsy laughed "I'd like to see the man who could beat you out, Harry. 'Sides, he's a hundred years old."

Harry paused at this, something dangerous shining in the depths of his eyes "There aren't many people that old in the world," Harry said with false levity.

"Don't go murdering anyone who sees me without a shirt," Eggsy laughed, and Harry seemed content to let it go. He pushed Eggsy's clothes off, moving away again to discard them on the floor and do away with his own trousers and pants much more respectfully. Then he was back, and Eggsy arched up to press them together more completely. They were both hard, but Eggsy's goal for once wasn't to get off, just to be as close as humanly possible. He really was starting to get old, he figured.

"Thought we had to be quick." He teased after Harry spent a good few minutes holding him close and kissing him. With a put-upon sigh Harry reached for the nightstand and came back with the well-used tube of lube.

They were quick after that, so when Harry drew Eggsy's legs up and pushed in it was too soon and Eggsy was impossibly glad. He would feel this all day tomorrow, tangible proof of a bright and impossible world.

"Eggsy-"

"Don't stop." Eggsy gasped and dug his knees into Harry's sides for emphasis. Blessedly, Harry listened. He took Eggsy in hand and set a careful but deep pace, bent as close as he could comfortably get, which was pretty close given Eggsy's well-maintained flexibility. Eggsy came suddenly on a delicate kiss, and Harry followed him like he'd just been waiting for Eggsy the whole time. Eggsy wished briefly in the afterglow that they had time to lay wrapped around each other in in bed all evening, but then Harry was pulling away, frowning, most likely at the relative quiet in the house.

A quick rinse in the shower while Harry straightened his clothes was all he could afford before they hurried back downstairs. He stepped off the landing moderately sure that he neither was loud nor looked well shagged; only to have his hopes crushed when everyone in the room broke out into spontaneous applause. Eggsy buried his face in his hands; Harry coughed beside him and glided off towards the dining room.

"So, who topped?" Jamal asked.

"Please don't answer him." Merlin drawled.

"Jamal, you're blind if you can't tell by lookin' at 'em." Ryan turned his attention to Eggsy, an earnest expression pulling his face into unfamiliar contortions "Eggsy, there's somethin' I just gotta know. It's been killin' me," the earnesty cracked right down the middle into a sly grin "Do you call him daddy?"

"Ryan, there is a child present." Michelle scolded, but it felt like a set-up.

It was a set-up.

"Yeah, and Daisy shouldn't hear this either," Jamal added smoothly.

Ryan and Jamal high-fived while Eggsy sighed in defeat. Roxy elbowed him gently during the laughter that followed.

"Are you alright?" she asked, making a surreptitious gesture to his eyes.

Eggsy rubbed his cheek, hoping his eyes weren't red enough for anyone else to notice "Oh, 's nothin'," at her skeptical look he added "look, I'm just really happy, ok?"

Her look changed to 'Roxy on a case', which wasn't better really, but she nudged him again with a muttered "sap," and let the matter lie.

His mum and Daisy went home first after they finished the cake, then Jamal and Ryan had to catch a late train, and then it was just the Kingsmen left. J.B. was asleep on his lap, Eggsy well into defeating his tolerance for beer, when he found himself wishing he knew how he and Harry started. He'd spent hours staring at pictures of the two of them - Harry and the other Eggsy - from the intervening years after his own Harry died and their lives branched off, but none of them hinted about the tipping point. This train of thought gave him a fit of inspiration, however.

"Oi, tell us again how you and Merlin got together."

Roxy goggled at him for a second "Really Eggsy? Do you know how many times I've had to tell that story?"

"Yeah, but how often do you get a chance to tell the real one?" Eggsy tried to bat his eyelashes the way Harry did sometimes and mostly succeeded.

Roxy looked at Harry "How long did it take you to teach him that?" Harry shrugged and sipped his beer, and Roxy sighed "Fine, but only because you're right, and it's better with the explosions. I got a mission in Bolivia…"

Rocks formed in Eggsy's stomach, dragging him back down from his happy little cloud and pinning him cold and heavy to the couch. Bolivia. He swallowed and looked at the silvered scars on the backs of his fingers, all he got for two days digging in twisted rebar. He didn't need to listen as she rattled off the mission details - Emma'd made him go over it enough times that he had it memorized by now. It never felt like a revelation until it was Roxy's voice summing up the finer point, though.

"Made Valentine look humane, that man," she concluded "Anyway, Merlin's been a surly git for a few months, sends me off with barely a nod. I was sure I'd been too obvious in taking a shine to him, so I let it be. I get in, and the mission goes off without a hitch. And I mean picture-perfect. Too perfect. Needless to say, he had a fucking mole."

Eggsy knew that too, it took Merlin - his Merlin - all of three hours after Roxy went dark to find said mole and return with every single ounce of information that could be pulled from the man. He glanced at the wizard and found himself the subject of a frown. When Eggsy looked up he looked away though and took Roxy's hand like it was an absent thought. She glanced over and smiled at him anyway.

"So I get to the runway outside, and boom - everything just goes up, he's taken a page from V-day and its fireworks everywhere. He comes on over the PA system, sure he's won, says some truly awful James Bond villain line, and is so pleased with himself he never sees me coming when I crash the helicopter into the control tower where he's hiding." Roxy grinned "Merlin got the plan halted, and with him dead there was no restarting it. 'Course I got buried in the rubble of the compound. You know this next part better than me-"

"Oh, tell it anyway," Eggsy had been about to say the same, but Harry had beaten him to it. He stole a glance and found him smiling, no evidence that his insistence had been for Eggsy's benefit, but still - it had been.

Roxy laughed a bit "Fine. My best friend, his worst kept secret, and a certain tech wizard made such a fuss that Kingsman broke form and sent out an extraction team less than an hour later. Got me out just before I suffocated."

So Harry was what had done the trick. The tiebreaking vote when Merlin had called one without Eggsy so much as having to ask. Of course.

Roxy kept on, well enjoying herself now. She pushed the sleeve of her shirt up to reveal some truly impressive scarring "'Course, all the bones in my left arm are Merlin's handiwork. And Merlin, well, he'd done well until then, but he slipped up. Found him asleep beside my bed in the infirmary when I came to," now she smiled, and Merlin flushed almost imperceptibly beside her "I'm not an agent because I'm pretty. That was a neon sign if I'd ever seen one. The last clue to the reason behind our great and terrible wizard's attitude. So I woke him up and asked him to marry me."

Eggsy choked on air "What? Just like that?"

Roxy nodded sagely "It turns out I was very, very high. But I remembered, and I set about making him say yes."

Eggsy stole a glance at Merlin. He tried to piece together the other story from it all - Merlin's tireless work, the vote tipped in favor of tradition, his shoulders, sagged with guilt, in the days after they flew Roxy home in a body bag.

"You're one lucky bastard, Merlin," he said. Merlin's arm tightened around Roxy, but otherwise he looked the part of the tipsy and put-upon husband.

"She wasn't the only one who wined and dined," Merlin insisted.

Eggsy listened to the conversation go on around him and fingered the ring box he'd been half terrified Harry would notice earlier in the bedroom. The ring sat in his pocket most days, a plan formed and waiting to be brought to action, but he couldn't bring himself to ask for forever when he still felt himself an imposter to some degree and they hadn't aired out what was happening at all. Maybe not anymore. He wondered if they could go on like this, surviving off the happiness they gripped with both hands forever.

Eventually Roxy and Merlin retired to the guest room and Harry joined him on the couch.

"I should mention that Merlin has given me a mission," Harry said as he put another movie on. He seemed to have taken it to heart that Eggsy wouldn't willingly be going to sleep, and Eggsy couldn't have been more thankful. "I'll be leaving early tomorrow, assuming he still permits it."

He sat back on the sofa with a sigh, but Eggsy could see he was excited to go back into the field at last. Merlin must have finally deemed him unlikely to get himself killed, which was a relief.

"I'll be here when you get back," Eggsy promised.

He leaned on Harry as they watched Trading Places again - something in Eggsy wept with joy at having a set of movies that were theirs - and quite accidentally drifted off.

In the strange intervening moments that had been extending of late, the ones after Eggsy fell asleep when Harry wouldn't, and would hang on as tightly as he dared until he was forced into unconsciousness, he pressed a kiss to Eggsy's hair.

"The least you could do is take me with you," he whispered.

* * *

"What the _fuck,_ Harry." Merlin said first thing the next morning when they found him alone on the couch.

"Is he gone, then?" Roxy asked.

Harry looked between them standing at base of the stairs and sighed, "Yes."


	6. Chapter 6

Eggsy woke up and had no idea where he was.

He was expecting the house this time, if he had his days straight, but the walls here were too close, the smell of bread was wafting in from the open window, and the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance all told him that he wasn't in London anymore.

So. Paris.

That was weird.

He found he was still in his suit, weapons and all, no surprise there since he'd fallen asleep on a ledge in the middle of a mission, two days on without a wink and just safe enough for an hour's rest. (It would really be a day's vacation, he knew; under normal circumstances he'd have pushed to the end). It was the first time he'd been able to stay up in either world and not be forced away, which had been hell but at least he hadn't died. He pushed the blankets off and stretched, then took in his surroundings more comprehensively.

None of it ended up mattering, not the gentle sunlight painting the Persian rug or the ancient plaster walls or fact that he recognized this base as one of Kingsman's - because one of Harry's suits was hanging in the closet.

Bennett's contraption really knew how to work, he thought appreciatively, and grinned as he leapt out of bed. Who cared if he'd just napped off a two-day mission in Russia - he would never in a million years pass up the opportunity to work with the original Galahad.

Eggsy was not disappointed. After a few hours of wandering around Paris waiting for something to jump out at him as the sun drifted closer to the horizon, a fruit stand quite literally exploded about ten feet down a corner street he was passing. It took him a second to realize it was because someone had just fallen into it from the roof of the three-story building it was set beside.

 _There he is_ , Eggsy thought, smiling. Then a volley of gunfire rang through the city - the kind that came from really big guns, which he had more experience with than he'd have liked. What few people were in the area scattered as Eggsy vaulted up a nearby fire escape to the fifth floor of the adjacent building, its rooftop, and raced to the edge.

There was Harry, ducked behind the cement access point to the roof with ten men on the other side wielding some very dangerous fire-power. The suits could take it, but it was the broken bones kind of taking it that the agents tended to avoid when possible. Harry checked his gun and Eggsy saw the face he made. Almost out.

And that was when the thumping beat of a helicopter made itself known in the distance. So Harry was well up a creek, Eggsy observed as he ducked down out of sight, watching the helicopter lumber through the sky towards them, and he was in a damn good mood so he really couldn't be blamed for the plan he came up with.

Harry never once got to see him in action, after all.

Focus sharpened the world around him, the warm wind on his face that carried the smell of the old city, the loud din of the helicopter's blades, the gleaming light of the setting sun glinting off Harry's glasses only a rooftop away. He grinned.

This was going to be a good day.

The looming shape of the helicopter drew up to the roof, heedless of Eggsy just out of sight across the street, and a gunman took hold of the 50 cal set in the side.

Lionhearted bastard that Harry was, he was staring down the helicopter like the force of his glare alone would fell it, so he didn't have to look far to find Eggsy when he burst out and opened fire on the metal hull.

He got a glimpse of the shock on Harry's face before the adrenaline took hold. Eggsy ran towards the helicopter, his bullets pinging off the side in flashes of sparking light until finally one hit just right and punched a hole in the fuel tank. The man inside was yelling, the gun spun round to aim at him as the pilot tried to move the whole hulking frame so Eggsy couldn't shoot anymore holes in it. Bad idea.

The tilt gave Eggsy the opening he'd been after all along. He reached the edge of the roof and, with the spinning blender blades out of the way, leapt off. For an exhilarating second he was in the air, the vortex of wind from the blades powerful as he scraped by them. Then gravity whipped him past and he just managed to catch on to one of the skids. The man on the gun, now thoroughly distracted from Harry, pulled out a pistol and started firing in a panic at Eggsy. Eggsy swung up into the cabin and used his momentum to kick the man out the other side.

Eggsy smirked as he fell. Then he slammed into the side of the cabin when the pilot tried to throw him after the gunman by flipping the helicopter almost on its side.

"Fuck." Eggsy muttered. That was a ballsy move so close to the ground. He was thrown to the other side when the pilot righted the bird, and he didn't waste any time drawing his gun and shooting the man in the head. A fuckin' tragedy, he suspected, losing talent like that. The helicopter started to list so he decided it wasn't so much of a tragedy that he couldn't shove his body out of the way and take the controls. Thank god he'd had training on these things, he thought to himself.

He landed the helicopter on Harry's side of the roof and stepped out, dusting his suit off, with a smug little smirk on his face.

"Hey Harry, need a hand?" He asked.

Harry was staring. Eggsy maybe preened a little, because there was no mistaking that he was impressed.

"Eggsy?! What the devil are you doing here?" He eventually managed.

Eggsy made a show of thinking about it "Looks to me like I'm saving you're arse, love," he grinned.

A shot rudely interrupted whatever Harry might have said to that as the men on the roof decided that whatever mad man had taken their helicopter was another target, and Eggsy strode forward to hand Harry two of his spare clips.

"Better make 'em count, yeah?"

Harry's eyes sparked - it hadn't been a challenge, but Eggsy could hardly blame him. After all, he had just jumped off a roof onto a helicopter to show off. Harry reloaded without taking his eyes off Eggsy and they rounded the access door together.

The ten men went down mournfully fast. Eggsy frowned at them in disappointment when they were all laid out on the roof in ungainly heaps. Then he turned to Harry.

"Are you alright?" he asked, coming to stand close in front of him.

Harry blinked "Am _I_ alright?" He cast what looked like an involuntary glance at the helicopter.

"You're the one I found pinned down and out of ammo," Eggsy replied smoothly. Harry considered him for a long moment, then reanimated and dug into the pocket on the inside of his blazer.

"Merlin, I'm bringing him in."

"He ain't gonna like that," Eggsy observed, smiling as Harry withdrew a spare set of glasses and set them on his face.

Eggsy adjusted them as Merlin's protests reached his ears.

"- he even get there? Not to mention Eggsy's never fought so-"

"What's got us in Paris, then?" Eggsy interrupted.

Merlin's voice became sullen static.

"Albert Ayer, a French aristocrat, has taken it upon himself to bring about world peace. Unfortunately, he intends to do it by attaching electronic parasites to everyone's brains in order to force them to be docile. One of his men is transporting the first batch of nanobots through Paris to a drop-off point in the catacombs, where Ayer intends to retrieve it and loose the lot on the French Parliament."

Eggsy nodded "Your cover?"

"Blown, I'm afraid."

"How long to the drop off?"

Harry glanced at his watch "Thirty minutes."

Eggsy whistled "Shit. Guess we'd better hurry."

"Yes," Merlin chimed tersely over the glasses "So now that you're caught up, I suggest you get to work. You'll need a code name, I'd rather not call you Breunor."

Eggsy almost said Galahad, but there was the true Galahad standing before him in all his glory. He had the strange feeling that he was being tested.

"Excalibur," he eventually settled on, grinning at his own implication. That would make Guy the lady of the lake, by his figuring, "'S about the only title we haven't used. Always thought it was a shame."

The rumble of many heavy footsteps made Eggsy look around, and he was happier than he should have been when he saw a small army gathering on the rooftops around them.

"Shit." Merlin muttered.

"That's a lot of guns," Eggsy said. He was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. Harry looked torn between doing the same and looking at Eggsy like he was liable to explode on the spot. Eggsy tossed him a saucy wink and handed over another clip preemptively.

"You heard him. Let's get to work."

Eggsy took off, and Harry was right behind him.

Eggsy fought better than he ever had before - he'd scarcely had a moment to breathe outside of work and he was buzzing with primed and well-honed skill. And Harry was there. That might have helped a lot.

They were fucking brilliant together, better than he could have dreamed. He could see the look in Harry's eyes that said he could hardly believe it either. Eggsy was the considerably better equipped of the two of them, but Harry was the only one with a rainmaker. A rhythm developed so quickly it seemed like they fought side by side every day. Harry went through bullets like a buzz saw might cut through styrofoam, but Eggsy was always there with another clip before he could miss them, and Harry was always there with the rainmaker if one of the bullets went astray and would have hit their target.

Since that first time in the pub Eggsy loved to watch Harry fight. Always sharp and quick and brutal, whenever he could stand it he would go back and watch Harry's old missions and for a while he'd even fooled himself into thinking it wasn't borderline pornographic. There was no denying it on that rooftop, though, as he ripped through black-clad men with the kind of efficient violence that made Eggsy's mouth water. His suit snapped with the force of his punches, the reach his long legs gave him on a kick was obscene, and Eggsy might have had a few near misses with his opponents because he was struck by the sight of Harry fighting and had his own battle to keep his blood from rushing away from his head. It didn't escape his notice that Harry was watching him too.

Eggsy leapt off one roof and onto another, happy as always to have parkour in his skill set, taking out five of the men with the maneuver, and expected to land hard on his shoulder for the trouble, but there was Harry throwing his hand out and catching him before he could hit. Harry spun around and fired the rainmaker, and Eggsy covered his six with a hail of bullets that was almost as good a defense as the shield.

Eggsy was breathing hard when the last man fell to the ground below. He dropped his arms, his bones feeling light from the near-constant vibration of the gun as it fired, and found Harry standing astonished by his side looking like he was one loud noise from ravishing him right there on the roof. He smirked.

"I've never fought like that in my life." Harry said at length. Eggsy grinned.

"Me neither, love. Come on, let's save the world. I got plans for tonight," he winked and Merlin cleared his throat.

"If you two are done showing off, the target is on the move. I'm sending the coordinates now."

The right eye of the glasses popped up the sort of map Eggsy associated with old shooter games. Harry drew himself back into his usual unflappable composure, but Eggsy thought it looked a bit brittle. They climbed down a fire escape and wound through the deserted streets, skirting a police blockade that had been set up in response to the gunshots.

"Think that buys us some time?" Eggsy asked.

"I should hope so. Unless he was early to the drop-off, he'll have to go on foot if he wants to make it before the ministers leave for the day."

Sure enough, a few blocks later they found their target, a wiry little man with a thick metal briefcase scurrying alone along the road.

"Too easy," Eggsy decided, and Harry nodded. They both drew their weapons.

And not a moment too soon, they found when four large men materialized from corners and behind cars, all clearly very skilled.

"Merlin, how close are we to the catacomb's entrance?" Eggsy asked, watching as the target sped up across the street, dropping his unguarded pretense. The little man was obviously going to be slippery.

"Less than a mile," Merlin said grimly.

"Right then," Eggsy turned to Harry, ignoring the big, glowering men around them. "You take care of them, I'll get the target. Sound good?"

Harry's eyebrows drew together "You're the one with the bullets," he protested.

"Harry, if I learned anything from all this it's that you hit harder than me but I'm faster than you," he leaned up and stole a quick kiss, handing off his last clip in the process "be back in a jiff."

And with that he was off, slipping past the men and tearing through the somewhat familiar streets of Paris after the man with the silver briefcase. This was the kind of thing Eggsy had imagined when he signed up - racing across foreign landscapes after evil men in order to save the world. Behind him he heard the tell-tale sounds of four men receiving a sound beating and grinned.

The target did turn out to be slippery - and almost as good as Eggsy at free running and more familiar with the winding Parisian roads and roofs. But Eggsy was a damn good agent, and he managed to catch up to him when he turned into a dark alley just by a busy entrance to the catacombs.

"Nowhere to go, mate." He grinned and lashed out with the butt of his pistol. The man went down like a ton of bricks - built for deliveries, not fights, Eggsy guessed. He heard the click of a gun cocking just as he bent to retrieve the case.

"MI6 is not so competent," Eggsy raised his hands and turned slowly to face the holder of the gun, a man who looked to be in his sixties with slicked back white hair and a suit so crisp Harry probably would have complimented him on it. Oh yeah, Eggsy would peg him as a villain. "Nor so well dressed."

"That's Ayer. He's more dangerous than he looks. Use caution, Excalibur." Merlin informed him.

"Good eye, gov," Eggsy agreed in his well-learned French. The pistol in his hand looked custom, a wide barrel implying high caliber bullets, gleaming silver with an ivory handle. Eggsy didn't fancy getting shot by it even if he was sure he'd survive. What was it with this bunch and their heavy weaponry?

"No matter," Ayer rolled his shoulders "I've more important things to deal with than foolish young men. I must capture parliament before sundown if I'm to make my dinner reservation, you see."

Eggsy blinked "Yeah, alright. Think I can come as your date?"

"That will be difficult, as you will be dead."

"Fuck-" Eggsy ducked away and the sharp sound of a gunshot rang out from behind him. Ayer looked surprised for the half a second it took his body to realize it was dead and fall to the ground. Eggsy turned to see Harry in the mouth of the alley, calmly tucking his gun away. He strode over and stooped to gather up the case.

"You may be faster darling, but I'm hardly slow."

"The thought never crossed my mind," Eggsy replied, smiling. Harry dusted himself off, and Eggsy wondered how many of these partnered missions it would take before Harry ruined him for working alone in the other world. The end of his Russian mission was going to seem cold and harsh for more than the climate already.

And fuck, he'd thought he was over mission boners ages ago, but then again, there was Harry to consider. Harry, who'd turned back to him and was lightly fixing his hair like nothing about the day had phased him in the slightest. Eggsy stepped into his space with purpose, and when Harry looked at him the image was ruined - his brown eyes were nearly black with pupil.

Eggsy dragged him down and sealed their mouths together, kissing him hard and messy and demanding with the euphoria of the mission. Harry made low sound in his throat, fisting his free hand in Eggsy's hair to wrest control from him so he could plunder Eggsy's mouth. Then he broke away suddenly, leaving Eggsy wound up and frustrated.

"Not here," Harry hissed.

"Not on the mission, please," Merlin complained, only for Harry to frown and rip the glasses off his face. Blinking, Eggsy followed suit.

As much as he wanted to protest when Harry drew away, out in the square Eggsy could hear more police marching towards the alley. They'd arrest the courier and Kingsman would have him in holding probably sooner than Harry and Eggsy would be in back England. That being said, the police would be less likely to let a couple of guys packing military-grade weaponry, and the only two suspects in the murder of a dignitary besides, go so easily.

Harry tugged Eggsy on out of the alley and down the street, putting a good distance between them and the dead mastermind. Eggsy had half a mind to complain anyway, especially when Harry gave the heavily-armed police running thick in the streets a look and scaled yet another building. It seemed they'd done nothing all day but be indecisive about how far from the ground they should be.

"We'll have to travel this way for a while. The police presence in the area is too strong."

While Harry said this Eggsy took the opportunity to shove him back into wall.

"Fuckin' knew it," he moaned when he felt the hot brand of Harry's erection press into his hip. He surged up and seized Harry's lips again, and this time Harry dropped the case, grabbed him around the waist and drew their bodies flush together.

"Fuck, Harry," Eggsy gasped, rutting against him "Swear to god, watching you fight is better than porn. I hope Merlin got this on video because it's gonna be my new go-to wank material."

"Me?" Harry hissed, and Eggsy blinked when he found himself flipped around and held fast between Harry and the wall, one of Harry's legs pressed between his own and against his dick.

"Fuck-"

"You should have seen yourself." Harry bit down on the soft skin just below Eggsy's ear and Eggsy keened. "You looked as if your feet never needed to touch the ground. All I could think about was how I wanted to snatch you from the air and claim you as my own."

"So-" Eggsy gasped when Harry's hands landed on his belt buckle "So fuckin' do it, then."

"Oh, I intend to," Harry growled with dark promise. For half a second Eggsy thought they were going to fuck right there on the rooftop, but then Harry got his belt and zip undone and he knew neither of them would make it that far. Post-mission fucks were of a special breed, but a post mission fuck with Harry was out of this fuckin' world. Eggsy cursed and almost bit through his lip when Harry's hand wrapped firmly around his dick and pulled.

" _Harry_ ," he gasped, thrusting forward desperately "Fuck, hurry."

Harry chuckled in his ear and let go just long enough to undo his own trousers. When Harry finally, finally lined their cocks up in his hand Eggsy saw stars. He slicked his palm with their mingling precome and wasted no time curling his wide hand around them both and stroking.

"Jesus," Eggsy gasped, watching his hand "Yeah, Harry, just like that, make me fuckin' come with gunpowder under your nails- _fuck_."

He glanced up and found Harry watching him intently, lips parted and eyes burning. Eggsy made a sound he wasn't sure was entirely human and dug both of his hands into Harry's hair to kiss him.

"Tell me when," Harry murmured against his lips "Tell me when so I can be with you."

" _Now_ ," was all Eggsy managed over the roaring in his ears Harry's words summoned up. Harry exhaled sharply against his lips and followed dutifully. Eggsy's hips jerked arrhythmically as Harry worked them through it, catching most of their come in his hand. Eggsy collapsed back against the wall and Harry against him, gasping, boneless and tingling, with the worst of his burning desire quelled but still needy and wanting for contact. Harry took to kissing down his neck, delicately sucking just under his collar to leave faint marks in his wake.

Eventually they drew apart and Harry produced a kerchief to clean up with. When they were both presentable and their breathing mostly even, Eggsy stepped close and asked "Now what?"

Twilight was well underway now, the sky a soft and misty blue overhead. Lights were on in the city, the bright yellow heritage bulbs of Paris glinting all around them. A few rooftops away soft light danced against old stone. Harry ran a hand through his hair a few times before sighing and giving up. Eggsy grinned at his handwork. Harry looked good disheveled. "Now we make for the jet home." he replied.

"Lead the way."

Harry nodded and together they made slow progress over the roofs. The one with the lights was low and set apart, leaving them in the air for an exhilarating moment before they landed. They dropped onto a secluded corner. Eggsy took a moment to smooth Harry's suit down needlessly, enjoying the feel of him under his hands more than anything. Harry leaned close, his eyes hooded.

"Come on then." Eggsy tugged him out of the shadows and they found themselves face to face with a hostess.

"Welcome," the woman said in the rich phonetics the upper-class French "Name on the reservation?"

Eggsy looked around. The lights they'd seen were tabletop candles set on elegant round dining tables across the roof, all tucked under great square umbrellas. Around the edges dark red roses climbed from troughs to a delicate iron railing, and beyond them the fading light of the horizon was speared by the golden spike of the Eiffel tower, the bright city spreading out at it's feet.

He felt Harry come up behind him, no doubt with some apologetic excuse about being lost on his tongue.

"Ayer," Eggsy tried. He figured it couldn't hurt. The waitress scanned her reservation list for half a second before smiling at them.

"Ah, yes, Ayer, party of two. Come, follow me."

' _Score!'_ he mouthed to Harry, his eyes shining. Harry looked amused as they followed the waitress to a table set right next to the railing.

"Your waiter will be with you shortly," she informed them, handing them menus before moving off.

Eggsy smiled over the table at Harry, who had yet to take his eyes off him since they entered. Harry reached over the table and opened his hand for Eggsy's, and Eggsy took it. "Have I told you recently that you are the most extraordinary person I have ever encountered?" He asked.

Eggsy shrugged and leaned closer "I could do with hearing it again."

"How fortunate, I was planning to tell you again anyway," he tugged Eggsy's hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to his knuckles "My darling Eggsy, I've no idea how I managed before we met. You are the eighth wonder of the world, and I can often scarcely believe that someone so flawless as you can exist in nature."

"Harry," Eggsy tipped forward so they were just hovering a hair apart, smiling "that ain't fair."

"You did ask."

"I'm gonna write a you a fuckin' sonnet one day, love." Eggsy promised "A whole book of 'em, dedicated to how impossibly perfect you are."

"Gentlemen, I hate to interrupt," came the waiter's voice, and they drew apart reluctantly as he set silverware down on the table before them "would you care for some wine?"

"Yes," Harry replied, slipping into perfect French "and we're ready to order, if you don't mind."

"Ah, of course," Eggsy cast Harry a confused look. Neither of them had so much as cracked their menus. But Harry rattled off a perfectly balanced three-course meal and wine combination that the waiter himself seemed to approve of before he whisked away with the menus.

"Been here before?" Eggsy drawled, watching as Harry picked up one of the wet towel packages the waiter had deposited with the silverware.

"Yes. It was six or seven years ago now, but things rarely change in a city this old." Eggsy watched him clean his hands and lost the battle with his smirk. Harry noticed and leaned close again.

"Would you have preferred I lick my hands clean?" Harry murmured, and Eggsy shivered at the image.

"Maybe," he replied, flashing a cheeky grin.

Dinner was spectacular, as Eggsy could have guessed. There was something wonderful about the way the candlelight looked in Harry's eyes, flickering occasionally in the warm summer breeze. At some indefinite point in the evening Eggsy dropped his hand and felt his fingers brush the ring box tucked in his pocket. Harry caught the flicker of whatever passed through his eyes then, if the slight narrowing of his own was any indication, but he didn't press.

When they left the streets were clear again. They walked slowly along, idling towards the city's edge. Eggsy noted that there was no conceivable way to land a private jet for miles, which meant they probably needed a taxi, but Harry didn't call one and Eggsy didn't suggest it.

He didn't think the back lawn of the Eiffel Tower was even remotely on their way either, but he was glad when Harry led them there.

He'd had a whole set of plans ready to work within the time constraints of his situation, but this wasn't the sort of opportunity to pass up for a night at a fancy London restaurant they'd been to a dozen times. There might have been a hundred cities he'd have sifted through to do this in, but there was something in the history and fantasy that bled from the streets of Paris that echoed in his heart, told him this was perfect for them.

"Harry," Eggsy said, taking his hand and tugging him to a stop, then coaxing him into setting the case on the ground beside them. "Today's been wonderful," he started, and Harry looked resigned.

"If...if you'd really like to come back to work-"

"What? No, love, this ain't about that. Work's fun, but a few explosions don't make for a day this good," he drew Harry close, so they were nearly chest to chest and he could take both of Harry's hands in his between them.

"We coulda been back home watching cricket all day long and I'd have had just as wonderful a day, or freezing our balls off in Russia, or anywhere, you know? So long as you're with me, nothing else really matters," he could feel he was blushing, but Harry was looking at him so sweetly, and still a little worried, so he smiled up at him "Harry, you know where I come from. I never once thought I could be happy like this and to be honest, I can still scarcely believe it. I love you. And I want to spend all day watching cricket with you, and traipsing around the globe kicking arse, and if we really must, freezing our balls off in Russia. So I've been meaning to ask you," he let go of Harry's left hand so he could dig into his own pocket for the little velvet box, and only noticed when the task proved difficult that his hands were shaking. He withdrew it and watched Harry's eyes go round as he flipped the lid up between them. "Harry, will you marry me?"

"Oh," Harry said in a rush of air, gaze fixed on the ring. Eggsy couldn't help but grin through his nerves. His plan had worked - Harry'd had no idea this was coming. Harry's free hand came up to hover around the box reverently - then he looked up at Eggsy.

"Are you sure?" he asked softly.

Eggsy blinked. "What about that speech implied I wasn't sure?"

"It's just that..." Harry hesitated, and for half a second Eggsy was prepared to tell him everything right then and there. Then Harry continued "The disparity in our ages doesn't bother me, darling, but when I think that I'll have to leave you for such a long time I..."

Words backed up on Eggsy's tongue as too many thoughts that amounted to _fuck that_ tried to escape at once.

"So why would I want to spend one second more without you than I have to? I'm gone on you Harry, there's no hope for me," he smiled "Besides, we don't know how our lives will work out. You might live to be a hundred and I'll be right pleased if I make it as far as seventy. No point in worrying about it. I wanna be with you forever. I don't care how long that is."

A moment passed while Harry stared into Eggsy's eyes, considering or enraptured Eggsy couldn't tell. Then he sighed and leaned their foreheads together.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, you're right," he smiled too, and it lit up his eyes "and yes, I'll marry you."

Eggsy laughed joyously and tilted his head to capture Harry's lips in a kiss. One of Harry's hands settled on the back of his neck, the other on his shoulder, both touches light and reverent. The lights on the tower started dancing behind them, drawing a murmur of appreciation from the onlookers, but neither Harry nor Eggsy noticed that or the sound of the camera that went off at them.

"Ah, splendid, splendid! Congratulations!" They broke apart to look at the man who'd spoken in confusion, then dropped their eyes to the bulky, expensive camera in his hands.

"What?" Eggsy asked.

"You, lovers! Engaged! Splendid!" He waved his camera "I caught the moment, yes. For you to remember, I send you?"

Eggsy was still blinking stupidly at the man, but Harry huffed in amusement "Yes, that would be wonderful."

At Harry's fluent French the man only became more excited. He flounced off with a promise to send the photos by the next morning and returned to photographing unsuspecting tourists with aplomb.

"Nice of him." Eggsy drawled. Harry turned back, angling the ring box so he could look at the ring closer.

"I, for one, will be glad to have the memento."

Eggsy couldn't stay annoyed, had hardly been anyway, and smiled again "Me too." He took the ring out of the box and, his hands still shaking, slid it onto the ring finger of Harry's left hand.

"Good?" he asked nervously.

Harry lifted his hand to inspect the ring, a soft, awed smile playing on his lips. "It's beautiful."

Eggsy fidgeted and tried to hide how pleased he was to hear it "It's an engagement ring, innit? It's supposed to be pretty."

The ring was a slate grey titanium, inset with a thin band of cherry wood and another of deep sapphire. Eggsy'd picked the design in a fit of inspiration, and in the months since he'd agonized over whether or not he should have agonized more. It was all very domestic, he figured when he took a break from agonizing. Now, stealing a glance at the surprise on Harry's face and judging from his reluctance to look away from it, he figured all his agonizing had been for nothing after all.

"Of course," Harry agreed "But this is a work of art. Where did you find such a thing?"

Eggsy shrugged "Had it made. Only the best for Harry Hart."

Harry huffed and wound the hand now sporting a ring into Eggsy's hair to kiss him again. This time they weren't interrupted.

Eggsy fell asleep with his head on Harry's lap while the jet was over the mainland. Harry had refrained from asking when Eggsy'd muttered something about feeling too light as he reequipped himself with enough ammo to take on a marine base. He sighed as he felt the unnatural pull of sleep that assailed him whenever he tried to stay awake much longer than Eggsy and wondered where he could possibly go from the cabin of an airplane. Nevertheless, he was gone when they landed. But there was proof of him, on Harry's left hand and in his email - a picture, pristine lighting as they kissed before the sparkling Eiffel tower, the ring held between them, a visible glint in the night.

Harry strode into headquarters at two in the morning and was entirely unsurprised to find Merlin wide awake and waiting for him.

"Harry," he said, his name weighty. Harry fingered the ring on his left hand, which he immediately realized was a mistake when the action drew Merlin's attention to it.

"What's that?"

"Ah, well, it's-"

" _Harry_ ," Merlin said again with force "What the hell are you _doing_?"

Harry bristled, but he didn't have the strength it took to argue with Merlin. "Every day is a gift, Merlin. I'm doing whatever I can," he replied softly.

"Damn it, Harry, we don't even know if it's really him."

"Haven't you made up your mind yet?" Harry asked tiredly "How long have you known?"

At this, Merlin frowned "Two months."

"And what have you found?"

"Nothing conclusive. Guy Bennett is in the same situation. There are traces of strange substances on the things he brings with him when he leaves and comes back. The blast site shows no sign of whatever did this to them."

"He mentioned he was painting a deck for an old man."

"I have eyes on him. He was, in fact, painting Bennett's deck."

Harry sighed. He was glad Eggsy hadn't commented on it, but he was tired and he had to imagine it showed. Eggsy had looked a bit tired too.

"Then if there's no evidence that he's lying, I don't much care. I know he's not our Eggsy, Merlin, but there's no doubt in my mind he's Eggsy. He's what could have been, I suppose, if we'd given him the chances I promised him."

"That's not how he tells it," Merlin continued without elaborating "There's one more thing, Harry. The breakdown in the radiation on the suit you brought in - it's accelerating."


	7. Chapter 7

Eggsy woke up cold and burning and screaming. He couldn't breathe in whatever dark box he was locked in; his hands felt like claws more than joints and skin. He scratched at the smooth metal above him, gasping, desperate, thought or said or heard _please please take care of Harry please_ \- and then was gone.

Eggsy gasped back awake and promptly retched on the carpet. Once he convinced himself he could breathe, he had skin, and his fingers bent, he forced himself off the floor and took note that the carpet was a garish yellow that he wasn't familiar with. The air was thick with industrial dust and sticky with heat and humidity. He looked out a nearby window and stared at the hazy skyline.

In one world, he had just gotten back from Russia. In the other, he was expecting to wake up in the house he now shared with his fiancé - or at least spend the day getting back there from wherever he'd fallen asleep over in the jet.

In neither world was he anywhere near fucking _Miami_.

"Shit," he said to the empty building. Merlin's warning from months ago echoed in his mind. It was breaking down.

* * *

"What the hell is happening to me?!" Eggsy demanded when he finally reached the Kingsman holding area, still sticky and gritty after eighteen hours in Florida and having just awoken from the most terrifying nap in his life. Guy frowned, but he looked almost as bad as Eggsy felt.

"You can't live in a dream forever."

"I woke up _in a dead body_! I spent yesterday in Miami - I don't even know which fuckin' world it was!"

"Wonderful beaches, I've heard," he drawled.

"Fuck you!" Eggsy shouted "How do I stop it?"

"You die."

Eggsy swallowed. "So this is going to kill me?"

Guy's eyes took on the same hollow glare that he'd worn when Eggsy'd stormed his base almost four months ago "I never cared how long I got to see him, boy. I'm old. The consequences didn't matter."

Eggsy slammed his hand on the wall "There must be something we can do!"

Guy opened his mouth to answer, but the world wavered before his eyes.

"What-" Eggsy collapsed, asleep. He woke up seconds later in an empty cell.

"Fuck."

Dread rose up in Eggsy's chest. He shut and locked the cell to hide Guy's disappearance and raced back to his empty house. He was a Kingsman, by god, he was good at chases.

* * *

He woke up under a bridge by the Thames, which was better than he'd expected since he last fell asleep on an airplane, and took the train to Guy's Hampstead residence. Every so often he felt the pull of sleep that wasn't sleep and stopped breathing, but it held off. He was tired - no, he was _exhausted_ ; normally when he switched worlds he still felt like he'd slept, but now sleep offered him no peace.

Before long he was pounding on Guy's door as the sun set over London. He pounded for a good while before Tommy answered, his stooped frame tense and his eyes wide and worried.

" _Eggsy_ ," he said, and again the dread leapt up into his heart. Tommy was relieved to see him, not concerned that he'd come over to the house as a hurricane comes over a coast.

"Tell me Guy's here."

Tommy shook his head and Eggsy sagged against the doorjamb.

"He was here when I woke up." Tommy leaned heavily on his cane "I thought - I thought maybe it was finally over. But then I fell asleep on the sofa after lunch and when I woke up I couldn't find him anywhere."

"Fuck," Eggsy said for what felt like the millionth time since he woke up in what he was trying not to think of as his own dead body.

"Eggsy, what's _happening_? Where is Guy?"

"He's-" Eggsy looked at Tommy's pinched and wizened face, and shook his head "He's gone and fucked the universes to be with you, gov, and the universe don't like it very much. It don't make no sense. But if anyone can fix it it's him, yeah? He'll be back, and when he does you tell him I was here and that you and I both expect him to fuckin' clean up his mess."

"I don't-" Tommy started, then stopped. There was the look Eggsy recognized from his former life, the one in the estates, when the wives would shut out what was probably good sense in favor of the husband they loved. "You swear he'll be back." Tommy's question sounded more like a demand.

"Yeah gov, in the morning probably."

Tommy nodded. Even as fucked as everything was now, Eggsy couldn't blame Guy for what he'd done.

* * *

It got worse. Eggsy wondered if he looked like some flickering old cartoon to someone rooted on one side or the other, though he really only switched a few times. For one awful moment on the train he'd been awake when the world _bent_ into horrible shapes and he fell through it. He barely knew the time and didn't know the world when he finally tripped up the front stair to his house. He made it only a few steps before he listed and fell against the wall. The lights were off, so he was pretty sure it was the world he'd rather not have been in, but what felt like seconds and might have been hours later the front door creaked open, spilling the light from the street into the hall.

" _Eggsy_!"

Eggsy almost sobbed when Harry's arms came around him. He raised his hands weakly to hug back, but then Harry tore away, the grey light from outside putting the fear on his face in stark relief as he frantically ran his hands over Eggsy's body for injuries.

"I'm alright, I'm alright. Just tired." Eggsy insisted even as he wavered without Harry there to hold him up.

"What can I do?" Harry asked, cupping Eggsy's face in his hands.

"There's only one person who can do anything," he breathed "and him and I are out of fuckin' synch."

"Who? If Merlin and I can bring him in-"

"No, not here, love, not if we can avoid it," he thought of how Tommy would react to a bunch of men in suits showing up on his doorstep, "Don't bring him in, but he might talk to you if you ask nice and say who you are. Guy Bennett."

Harry blanched at the name, "Eggsy, Guy Bennett is dead."

"Nah, there's another one, lives in Hampstead with his-"

"Recent husband, we know. They were found dead this morning from a carbon monoxide leak."

"Oh," Eggsy said, and half a second later Harry was wiping at his face.

"Eggsy, Guy Bennett, he - he's the reason -"

"That's a different Guy. Didn't care about nothin' but Tommy." Eggsy interrupted "Sorry - it's not like I never lost anyone, I don't even know why -" he batted Harry's hands away and scrubbed at his eyes "fuck, they deserved more time. They really got married?"

Harry nodded, still watching him closely, and Eggsy smiled a little. So much for Tommy's staunch refusal to pander to The Man. He took a deep breath "I guess I better go to sleep then. It's about my only chance," though a part of him hoped to god Bennett was dead in both, poor bastard.

"Must you?" Harry whispered "Eggsy, you disappeared for four days."

"Is that all?" Eggsy leaned forward and hovered close, "It feels like years when I can't see you."

A hurt sound escaped Harry's throat and he crossed the short distance to kiss him. It was demanding and sweet at the same time, a lonely sort of kiss that Eggsy wished would last forever and wanted to banish at the same time.

"You'll come back," he said when he pulled away, a demand more than a question, and Eggsy's eyes snapped up to his face. _Have I really made you sound like that_ , he wondered. He and Guy Bennett were more alike than he wanted to think.

"If it fuckin' kills me, love."

* * *

Eggsy walked slowly through the lower halls of the Kingsman mansion. He'd finally been allowed to sleep. He wondered if, with the disruption halved by Guy's death, the progression of the breakdown had slowed.

He half expected to find an empty cell or a dead body when he pressed the button that moved the iron door aside, but when he stepped in his heart lurched – Guy was there, and he was breathing.

"You're still alive."

Guy looked at him and laughed. He laughed, and he kept laughing until he was sobbing though his smile, and it was the strangest thing, but Eggsy understood. Thirty years of work for three months, and it was _worth it_. It would be worth it even if Eggsy really did start to see two worlds like intertwined film from a stop-motion camera, and it would be worth it if he slipped between them and out of them both. But Guy was here, and he was alive, and the dead part of Eggsy's heart that the last three months had revived saw a glimmer of hope in that tragedy.

"Just tell me one thing. How many times have you woken up here since?"

Guy coughed, still laughing, but less "every time," he said, then again "every time."

Eggsy took a deep breath.

"Ok."

He drew his gun and fired a single shot.

* * *

Eggsy didn't fancy finding out just how many times the universe might get confused and shove him in some burnt-out corpse, so he figured he didn't have a lot of time left. That, added to the fact that someone was bound to stumble across Bennet's body in a few hours, was what made him charm one of the spare pilots into letting him leave for his most recent assignment early.

"I don't see what your rush is," Merlin was grumbling in his ear "you seemed in a good enough mood a few days ago."

That was before he spent eighteen confused hours in Miami torn between phoning Kentucky, calling home, and trying not to catch syphilis from air that was so wet that he was practically swimming, Eggsy didn't say. He didn't think about the rest of the mishaps. Most were too horrifying and confusing, one too precious. Nothing in either universe was going to keep him from going home to Harry - his fiancé. Even tense and walking a knife's edge between worlds, the thought brought a smile to his face.

"Just got too much energy," Eggsy replied "need to burn it off with a good fight."

Ironically, it was Ayer again. He figured it was a pity to be killed by a man who, in their last encounter, had been felled so easily, but he hoped Ayer would be colder and harsher here, just like everything else. Rumor had it he already had the French parliament under his thumb - Eggsy agreed, given that it happened about a week before - so Eggsy was on his way to Ayer's compound in the alps. Something about the unforgiving mountain range drew European maniacs; Eggsy pondered as they landed the Jet.

Ayer was a lot more formidable with his army of brainwashed people and animals at his command. He and Harry had been damn lucky.

"Round the next corner, mission control is the second door on the left," Merlin said, her voice high and quick. She was scared but she was holding it together well. He wanted to assure her the outcome of the mission was decided, but he doubted it would be a comfort.

He went where she told him and barricaded the door, finding the control room thankfully empty. A wall of monitors sat before three long rows of computers with double monitors. The whole thing looked very national-security, NASA-esque.

"I'm looking for ways to get you out. Just sit tight there, Galahad," Merlin said in his ear. On one screen he could see Ayer hurrying towards a private jet.

"Merlin, where's the self-destruct?" he asked.

"It's by the monitors. Don't activate it until I clear your exit."

Eggsy scanned the room and spotted an obvious red button set into a raised console. He ignored Merlin, walked over, and pressed it. All at once the compound's lights went red. This was one case where the concept of self-destruct made sense, Eggsy decided as insane gorillas pounded on the door outside, but still, that was a bit easy.

"Galahad?!" Merlin shouted in his ear and he winced.

"Stop what you're doing and focus on keeping the hanger door shut." Eggsy said. When her frantic typing kept up he sighed. "It's three minutes to game over. I'm not getting out. Make it count."

"Galahad," Merlin started, but the typing stopped. He really had liked her. She was never one to give up before the very last, but even she could see he was fucked.

"It's alright, Merlin, this isn't your fault. You better be fucking recording this, because it's me going on record - I _wanted to die here_. Nothing you did or didn't do could have stopped me. This was my plan all along, it just worked out to be more mandatory than melodramatic. I've lost everything. I'm tired. And there's someone waiting for me."

"Eggsy-"

"Goodbye Merlin." He ripped off his glasses and crushed them under his heel.

As the seconds flickered closer to zero he pulled out his phone and sent one last message.

'Merlin, ask that girl to marry you while you both still have teeth. Don't beat yourself up when you hear. I'm happy as fuck, but I ain't got time to say why. Doubt you'd believe me anyway. Thanks for the advice on rings.'

He hit send with seconds left, and laughed at the reply that pinged back almost instantly.

'Wanker.'

The base exploded.

* * *

"I died," Eggsy said to the sun-dappled room.

Harry's arm tightened around his chest. Eggsy looked over to find him already wide awake, staring so hard Eggsy thought he might lose a layer of skin.

"Yes."

He frowned at Harry's shattered look "what do you mean ' _yes_ ,' I just did it five minutes ago."

"I...beg your pardon?"

Eggsy frowned as more of his brain came online "We should talk." Harry moved to sit up, but Eggsy grabbed his arm. "But I've just died and I'd like a few minutes to lie here and deal with that."

Harry was still staring, but he slowly relaxed back into the mattress. Eggsy ignored his imploring look, flipped onto his side and tucked himself as close as he could get.

His first morning with Harry wasn't quite as romantic as he would have hoped, as his mind was still reeling from the whole blown-into-an-alternate-reality thing, and Harry, though he'd got with the program and was holding onto Eggsy almost a hair too tight now, was clearly also stressed. Still, it was his first morning with Harry. That was what eventually made him smile into Harry's neck. He'd done it. This was where he was going to stay, forever, if Harry would have him.

"Eggsy?"

"Yeah love?"

"About that talk."

"I did promise, didn't I." Eggsy sighed and sat up reluctantly, Harry close behind him, and rubbed at his face. "Yeah, ok, here goes." He took a deep breath "I told you I'm not...I'm not your Eggsy."

Harry opened his mouth but Eggsy barrelled on, fearing he'd lose his nerve if he didn't "Guy Bennett, you know? He built somethin' so he could get back to the guy he loved. I got sent to investigate, was caught in an explosion and 'ave been bouncing between my world - where I just died - and here, where everything's fuckin' perfect, ever since. I didn't know what happened at first, so I didn't say anything, and I was too happy to think about it until Merlin found me." He shifted so his feet dangled over the edge of the bed and gripped the comforter tightly "And I still didn't say nothin' because I didn't want to lose you. I'll understand if you're angry Harry, but I thought as long as you didn't ask I wasn't going to ruin the best thing in my life." He said the rest in a rush, as much as he was glad of it, it felt unimportant now "Then just this week the whole thing got unstable, but from what I can gather it's just cuz I did it too long. The only way to fix it was to pick one, and the only way to pick one was to die in the other. So I picked."

There was a long, tense moment where Eggsy couldn't look at Harry, and Harry didn't say anything while he absorbed what Eggsy had said. Then he moved to sit beside Eggsy, perching with one hand close to Eggsy's. "I can hardly be angry with you for perpetuating a precedent I set myself," Harry said quietly. "How much did Merlin tell you?"

Eggsy turned to Harry and found his dark eyes unfathomably deep "If you're asking whether I want to hear your version, the answer is yes."

Harry nodded and started the story slowly. "You were in an explosion. We can agree on that much. You didn't walk away from it. I went myself as part of the search party and found you. I hadn't managed to tell anyone yet - the night you came home, I assume it was your first visit - was the first time I'd managed to make it as far as the kitchen in the week since."

"Merlin told me," Eggsy said. "But...I kept wonderin', if I walked in after bein' dead for a week, how come you acted so normal?"

"You stood by the door for nearly an hour. I saw you. I'm afraid I coped rather poorly," Harry smiled ruefully.

"It couldn't have been that long."

"It was. You were strange, that night. It seemed as though you weren't whole."

"Probably wasn't." Eggsy agreed, thinking "You were making pancakes. At almost midnight. Who the fuck does that?"

"It used to drive you mad. I think some part of me half expected you to come back just to scold me."

Eggsy swallowed past a lump in his throat and thought of all the stupid little things he'd done in the past with the same feeble hopes. "That's...really sad, Harry."

"Well it did work." Harry gave him a brittle smile, but it faded quickly "Eggsy..."

"Ask, Harry. Anything you want."

"In Paris. You fought...you were maddening. I've never seen even an experienced agent move the way you did."

Eggsy ducked his head "Yeah, well, I mighta been showing off for you a bit."

Harry let out a shaky laugh and absently thumbed the ring on his left hand "I'd say it worked. You were brilliant."

It's stupid how easily Harry's praise can still turn him into a grinning idiot, so he bites his lip and focuses on the other important part of Harry's statement "Even an experienced agent?" Eggsy inquired, and Harry nodded.

"You're a reserve agent here until a space opens up. You're a bit of a contentious topic among the knights. Might I ask what your code name is there?"

Eggsy didn't think he could hide the pain in his eyes when he answered, so he didn't try.

"Galahad."

Eggsy watched it dawn on him, what it meant that Eggsy held his title. They were both quiet for a long time. Then Harry chuckled to himself, though it held little humor.

"What a pair we make," he ran a hand through his hair "Still, I'm sorry that you had to choose. Your family will be devastated."

Eggsy dropped his eyes to the side.

"Eggsy?"

"It wasn't just you, Harry," He said, quiet and harsh like a confession "Roxy, Mum, Dais... all I got for company there is a bunch of polished rocks. I ain't gonna miss it. But-" he swallowed and studied a loose thread on his pillowcase "But I ain't your Eggsy, am I then. If you want me to leave-"

"No!" Harry's hand darted out and latched onto his arm like he was afraid Eggsy might vanish, which was probably fair, and Eggsy looked up to find his eyes wide and fearful "No, please don't go. You're not the Eggsy who lived with me these past few years, darling, but you are mine."

Despite the earnestness in his tone and posture, a second later a crushing sort of guilt clouded his eyes.

"Harry?" Eggsy asked.

Harry drew back, and Eggsy was half afraid he'd take back what he said as well, but he didn't say anything more.

"Should I-?

"No." Harry said again with no less conviction than before. "No, I never want you to leave."

"Then what is it, love?"

"I'm a terrible man," he said in a rush "The fact is there's two of you, and I love you both, but how would he feel to know what I've done?"

For a long moment Eggsy said nothing. But with each second that passed Harry seemed to collapse more into his guilt, and eventually Eggsy couldn't bear to watch any more.

"He asked me to take care of you." Eggsy's voice was barely above a whisper.

"...What?" Harry lifted his head.

"When...when the...whatever, started to break down. I woke up in his body."

"My god, Eggsy-"

"Didn't last long, I guess the fire did something to his lungs 'cuz I passed out real fast, but he or I or whatever...said 'take care of Harry'," he swallowed "So...I don't think he'd be angry or hurt. I wouldn't be if it was me."

Eggsy fell quiet again and waited for Harry's decision. He'd promised himself he'd go if he was asked, and he would, even if he would ruin himself in the process. The moment was short but stretched on in Eggsy's mind, and then Harry blew out all the air in his lungs with a soft sound and Eggsy found himself hauled into his arms.

"My darling Eggsy," he said quietly, his voice cracking and the sound made Eggsy's eyes prickle. Eggsy held fast when Harry started to tremble. Eggsy couldn't cry so easily anymore, not for himself, but his eyes still burned for Harry's loss.

"So I can stay?" He asked, the cloying fear in his heart driving him to speak.

"Yes," Harry said softly. He drew back just a bit and wiped his eyes, "You're different, Eggsy, I knew you were different, and I fell in love with you all over again. I wasn't lying at the party. I agreed to marry _you_."

And suddenly he _can_ cry, wouldn't Emma be proud. Harry drew him close again. How long they sat on the bed Eggsy didn't know.

"Mum can't ever know," he said eventually, and Harry nodded.

"Merlin and Roxy already do," Eggsy had expected that, if he was being honest, "We should have breakfast and head to Kingsman. There are things we'll need to sort now that you're going to stay."

Eggsy sighed and drew back just enough to kiss him. It was chaste and hesitant, but Harry welcomed it, and that was enough. When Eggsy climbed out of bed, Harry took up his glasses and slipped them on his face.

"Merlin, we have our answer. He's come home for good."

* * *

A few weeks later Eggsy had the strange experience of attending his own funeral. Only Harry, Merlin, Roxy, and what few Kingsman employees were briefed on the situation stood by the headstone set where Eggsy was so used to seeing Harry's. They'd had to be careful with the inscription, but Eggsy had emphatically agreed when Harry came to him about their final decision. He could live with being buried as _Gary_ so long as the name was followed by _Hart_.

Rain drizzled on their umbrellas, and Eggsy half wished he could tell himself what a dramatic funeral he'd had. He slipped his hand into Harry's as they stood, hesitant, and Harry twinned their fingers together tightly.

Slowly the others trickled away, until it was just the two of them by the grave.

"Eggsy, why don't you head back to the car." Harry let go of his hand and gave him the umbrella. "I'd like to have a word with your counterpart."

Eggsy was no stranger to conversations with headstones, so he nodded and trod off to stand by the car dutifully. Once he was out of earshot Harry took another few minutes to look at the headstone, the light rain settling as dewy mist in his hair.

"I've heard you told him to take care of me," he said eventually, interrupting the silence of the graveyard "Well that's _bullshit_. For heaven's sake, Eggsy, you were my world. And you died." He rubbed at his eyes "Neither he nor you can keep me from grieving, darling, and I don't want either of you to. I intend to miss you every day. I intend to keep loving you until I follow you into the grave. And I will still love him, because there's room enough in my heart for both of you."

He set his hand on the cool, damp stone, and let it take his weight for a moment.

"Goodbye, Eggsy," he murmured.

He turned back to the car, where Eggsy - the second love of his life - was leaning against the car under his umbrella, waiting.


End file.
